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SORROWING 

NOT WITHOUT HOPE 

For those Bleeping in ]esue 




"Though some whose presence once 
Sweet comfort round me shed, 
Here in the body walk no more 
The way that I must tread, 
Not they, but what they were, 
Went to the house of fear; 
They were the incorruptible; 
They left corruption here. 



Thank God for all my loved, 

That out of pain and care 

Have safely reached the heavenly heights, 

And stay to meet me there! 

Not these I mourn, — I know 

By faith their joys sublime, — 

But for myself that still below 

Must wait my appointed time." 




c, V 






NEW YORK 
THOMAS WHITTAE 

2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSE 
l88; 




^ 

^ 



Copyright, 1887, 
By THOMAS WH1TTAKER. 



Co 



RAND AVERY COMPANY, 

ELECTROTYPERS AND PRINTERS, 

BOSTON. 



PREFACE. 



T^HE subject-matter of this little volume has 
its interest to all classes of thoughtful read- 
ers. Such interest, however, thus common to all, 
is peculiar to one class, — the Christian mourn- 
er at the grave, or in the remembrance of those 
who " in Christ have fallen asleep." Blessed are 
they that thus mourn, for they shall be com- 
forted. Even in their mourning there is comfort, 
— the precious assurance that with those who 
have gone it is well : the blessed hope to those 
who remain of heavenly reunion. With " this 
comfort wherewith they are comforted of God " 
they should render themselves familiar, and in it 
find their abundant consolation. So far, too, as 
opportunity is afforded, should they extend and 
impart this consolation to others. 



CONTENTS. 



I. PAGE 

"SORROW NOT WITHOUT HOPE" 7 

II. 
THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLATION ... 28 

III. 
THE REST OF GOD'S PEOPLE 49 

IV. 
JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE, 67 

V. 

JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE, 84 

VI. 
THE BLESSEDNESS OF THOSE WHO DIE IN 

THE LORD 102 

VII. 
THE DIVINE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE . 126 

5 



SORROWING NOT WITHOUT 
HOPE. 



I. 

"SORROW NOT WITHOUT HOPE." 

" / would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concern- 
ing them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others 
which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God 
bring with Him." — i Thess. iv. 13, 14. 

'"PHE occasion of this language seems to have 
* been a certain erroneous impression, preva- 
lent among the Thessalonian believers, in refer- 
ence to the second coming of Christ, — that 
second visible coming of the Son of man, of 
which the apostles had received assurance on the 
day of His ascension. The exact time of this 
event had not been revealed : and as there was 
a promised coming of the Master to His faithful 
servants in the hour of their departure ; as there 
was, moreover, a coming of this Master, not far 

7 



8 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

distant, for judgment upon His apostate people, 
— these different comings became confounded to- 
gether, or were regarded as identical. In some 
cases, perhaps, there was the expectation of a 
second visible coming of the Lord Jesus, very 
near at hand, for the setting up of an earthly 
dominion \ to give the kingdom to the spiritual 
Israel ; to confer upon His people great earthly 
blessing and prosperity. Others, again, recog- 
nizing more fully the spiritual character of this 
kingdom, and the real nature of these blessings, 
were led to identify their reception and enjoy- 
ment with the actual fact of the Master's second 
coming, and as dependent upon it for their real- 
ization. The inquiry thus arose, whether those 
who had already died, and those who would 
die prior to this event of triumph and blessing, 
could have any share in it ; still further, to the 
more anxious inquiry, what would become of 
these departed ones, — how it would be with 
them, whether or not they had perished entirely ? 
Many of these early disciples, we must remem- 
ber, were converts from the imperfect light of 
Judaism, from the gross darkness of heathenism. 
Christian truths, with which we have been famil- 
iar from childhood, they were just beginning, 



SORROW AWT WITHOUT HOPE, 9 

and in many cases very imperfectly, to see and 
understand. We must, therefore, not be at all 
surprised at these their difficulties and misappre- 
hensions, even though they were apostolic con- 
verts, and had received apostolic instruction. 

To remove such difficulties and misapprehen- 
sions was the design of this language. Those 
to whom the apostle is writing, are told that 
those who have fallen asleep in Christ, are with 
Christ ; that when Christ comes, God will bring 
with Him all of His servants who shall die prior 
to that event ; that there will be no pre-eminence 
to those who shall then be living ; that after 
they that have slept in Christ are awakened, 
and they that are alive at His coming are 
changed, they shall then, both alike, the changed 
living and the revivified dead, be caught up in 
the air to the Lord, to be with Him and with 
each other forever. In view of these truths, 
they are told to comfort one another ; to console 
themselves with this Divine assurance of their 
blissful and endless re-union with their ascended 
Lord and with their departed friends and 
brethren. " Wherefore, comfort one another 
with these words." 

But while thus primarily made use of to re- 



IO SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

move existing errors, this language is no less 
instructive or of interest, in its material and 
for others ; for all classes of hearers or readers 
of the Divine Word. The truths which it 
reveals are truths for every age of the Church 
and for every class of Christian believers. 
Properly received, they are to all suggestive 
of profitable improvement, of abundant con- 
solation, especially to those in the experi- 
ence of bereavement and its sorrow over 
friends or relatives sleeping in the Lord Jesus. 
To some of these truths, as thus brought 
before us, we may, therefore, profitably give 
our attention. In laying them to heart, and 
dwelling upon them, we attain their Divinely 
intended purpose : " with these words comfort 
ourselves.' ' 

In so doing, we first notice the class spoken 
of, and the form of expression in which they 
are described, — departed believers, " sleeping in 
Jesus," "the dead in Christ." The text thus 
manifestly has reference, not to all, but to one 
class of the dead ; those who, in virtue of their 
connection with a living Saviour, shall enjoy a 
blessed resurrection. They are spoken of as 
asleep; although dead, yet as "in Christ." 



SORROW NOT WITHOUT HOPE. II 

This form of expression implies that they are not, 
like others, without hope or prospect of a blessed 
awakening. They are not hopelessly dead, but 
in a state of blessed slumber. "They are 
asleep/' not, indeed, as to the spirit which is 
with Christ, which, " absent from the body, is 
at home with the Lord," but as to their bodily 
powers and activities. The redeemed spirit, 
departing from its bodily companion, is even 
now wakingly present with its ascended and 
living Lord. And the body, consigned to its 
earthly resting-place, is slumbering in sweet 
and safe repose for the awakening of the res- 
urrection. The body of Jesus Himself thus 
slept for a brief season in an earthly sep- 
ulchre. The bodies of His people for a brief 
season are in a like state of blessed slumber. 
More than once do we find this expression made 
use of in reference to the children of God de- 
parted from this world. And it is well worthy 
of note, that, with one doubtful exception, 1 it is 
never in the New Testament applied to others. 
The dying Stephen " kneeled down, and cried 
with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their 
charge. And when he had said this, he fell 

* 2 Pet. iii. 4. 



12 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

asleep." "Some," said the apostle, speaking 
of those who had testified of the resurrection, 
"some remain at this present, but some have 
fallen asleep." If Christ be not raised, they 
that have fallen asleep in. Him have perished. 
To use the language of Jesus Himself, with refer- 
ence to Lazarus, these departed ones are not 
hopelessly dead, they are asleep. Their slumber 
shall know of an awakening. It is the sweet 
sleep of the laboring man, life's toils being 
ended ; that blessed slumber of the worn and 
wearied bodily frame, which prepares it for new 
and future employment, — the endless activities, 
the blessed rewards, the perfect enjoyments, of 
a heavenly existence. 

And as there is this great difference from the 
children of this world, with those "who sleep 
in Jesus," "who die in the Lord," so must 
there be a difference in our feelings when they 
are taken away from us, or when we think of 
them in sorrowful remembrance. " We are not 
to sorrow as do others which have no hope." 
Natural feeling called forth in the departure of 
our loved ones, or as the remembrance of them 
comes up to our minds and hearts, must be 
sanctified, — must be restrained and moderated. 



SORROW NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 1 3 

" I would not have you to be ignorant in regard 
to these departed ones. I would give you in- 
struction as to their present safety and future 
blessedness, that knowing this, and in such 
knowledge sustained, ye should be consoled, — 
not sorrow as do others, the children of this world 
over the children of this world without hope." 
Notice the peculiar discrimination of this lan- 
guage ; its tenderness, and beautiful adaptation 
to the weakness even of sanctified human capa- 
city. The persons here addressed are not en- 
tirely forbidden the expression of grief under 
the pressure of natural bereavement, or in think- 
ing of those from whom by death they had been 
separated. They are not told not to sorrow at 
all, but, in the outpouring of natural feeling, not 
to do so hopelessly. The gospel of Christ is for 
man. It is for man as he really is, — in his weak- 
ness and imperfection, the child of sin, the inher- 
itor, therefore, of all the infirmities and sorrows 
and sufferings of which sin is productive. This 
gospel does not dry up any current of natural 
affection, blunt any susceptibility of sorrow or of 
joy with which we are endowed. Its object rather 
is to elevate and purify every such capacity in 
its exercise, — to render the child of God more 



14 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

sympathetic, more Christ-like, more capable of 
feeling, and, therefore, of relieving, human suf- 
fering- That which increases capacity of pure 
enjoyment in a world like ours, increases capacity 
of suffering. Were it not for the compensative 
consolations of Divine grace, Christians, in this 
increased capacity of suffering, which comes 
through the purification of natural feeling, would 
be " of all men most miserable." Even with such 
divine consolation, the truth is distinctly rec- 
ognized, that natural grief may have its proper 
expression. He who, in . His compassion, re- 
stored a darling child to her bereaved parents ; 
who, in pity to a widowed mother, called back 
the spirit of an only son ; whose own tears were 
shed at the sepulchre of Bethany, — would not 
altogether restrain those of His people under 
similar circumstances. Constituted as is human 
nature, there is a reality in such experience, that 
moves painfully, from its lowest depth, the foun- 
tain of feeling and affection. Say what we will, 
let others say what they will, let it be said kindly 
and wisely and truly, let us recognize as we may 
its appropriateness and its sympathy, and yet 
the thought of a life-long- absence cannot but 
create an aching void in any human bosom. 



SORROW NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 1 5 

And he is not more, but less, than a man, who 
would disregard these feelings, or altogether 
repress them. There is, indeed, comfort for 
them that mourn. But that such comfort is 
divinely provided, shows that it is really neces- 
sary. The chastisement may, indeed, here- 
after bring its peaceable fruits of righteousness. 
But it must needs be real chastisement to pro- 
duce such effect, — in its reception is full of grief. 
The " light affliction, but for a moment," may 
"work out for us a far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory." But it is affliction 
still. Though light in comparison with its 
heavenly results, it is heavy in itself, heavy as 
compared with other trials to which in this 
world we are subjected. 

And yet, in the heaviest and bitterest, and to 
the feelings which they call forth, there must be 
a limit. We are not " to sorrow as do others 
without hope," — "without hope." There are 
those without hope, either as to themselves, or 
as to their departed objects of affection. To 
these the only relief is that which comes from 
exhaustion ; the weakening of memory, — the 
displacement of the lost object by others of a 
more engrossing character. For these there is no 



1 6 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE, 

comfort, no hope, — no hopes but those that are 
delusive. That they should mourn hopelessly, 
as long as they mourn at all, is but in accordance 
with the real facts of their condition. The 
grave may, indeed, be decked with all the tokens 
and emblems of immortality. The lying epitaph 
may deceive the stranger, incite the scoff of 
the bad, and the sigh of the good. The rising 
shaft may point to a heaven the blissful abode 
of the children of God. But there is no hope ; 
no hope for that godless man lying in death, no 
real hope in the bosoms of those who are cheat- 
ing themselves with such delusion. The light 
of Heaven does not shine upon that grave. It 
is the grave of the earthly and sinful. " When 
a wicked man dieth, his expectations perish." 
"The wicked, in his wickedness, is driven 
away." 

*' But the righteous in his death hath hope ; " 
and the righteous who by such death are in the 
experience of bereavement and sorrow, also have 
hope. In such bereavement, and the grief which 
accompanies, they are not forbidden the expres- 
sion of natural feeling, but they are forbidden 
the sorrow of others, — the sorrow of this world. 
They are not to sorrow hopelessly in their sepa- 



SORROW NOT WITHOUT HOPE. \*J 

ration, — must not forget the blessed hope of a 
blessed re-union. They are not to sorrow rebel- 
liously, calling in question the Divine propriety 
of any such dispensation. They are not to sor- 
row as over an accident, the mere result of hu- 
man contingency, failure, mistake, sickness, or 
mortality. They are not to sorrow as if the event 
which produced their grief were unknown or un- 
provided for in the counsels of Divine love and 
wisdom. They are not to sorrow as if the be- 
reavement were necessarily an evil, either to 
themselves, or to those who are taken. They are 
not to sorrow as if this chastisement — chastise- 
ment though it be — were not from a Father's 
hand, — were not dictated in tenderest love, as 
well to the departed as to the survivors. In all 
these respects, the child of God, by faith in Christ 
Jesus, must not sorrow as do others. He will 
be tempted thus to do; andj therefore, he is 
guarded against it. He will be tempted, first of 
all, to sorrow despondingly ; in that life-long 
separation, — which, after all, may be only a 
few days, — to doubt or forget that eternal re- 
union, to which the longest life is but a moment 
in comparison. He will be tempted to sorrow 
rebelliously, — to be asking why this one should 



1 8 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

have been taken, rather than others whose loss 
would have been scarcely felt ; why this particu- 
lar mode of chastisement, rather than any other, 
should have been selected. He will be tempted 
to sorrow as over something that might have been 
avoided by human means, — as something, per- 
haps, brought about through want of care, skill, 
or watchfulness ; something for which God did 
not make loving and careful provision ; and he 
will be tempted to sorrow as if the chastisement 
were evidence of a Father's displeasure, and of 
nothing but His displeasure. In all these varied 
forms of temptation and trial, he must stay his 
soul with Divine consolation. He must remem- 
ber that God does not willingly afflict or grieve 
the children of men of any class, much less those 
who are His by filial affection and obedience ; 
that " like as a father pitieth," — not merely 
loveth, but pitieth, " like as a father" whose love 
is moved to its deepest and tenderest exercise 
at the sight of his suffering child, — " even so 
the Lord pitieth them that love Him." He must 
bear in mind, that "whom the Lord loveth, 
He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom 
He receiveth." That Lord knows of every 
affliction before it comes. He knows it to be 



SORROW NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 1 9 

necessary and good. And He provides consola- 
tion to sustain His people exposed to it. His 
language to them is, " Fear not : for I have re- 
deemed thee, I have called thee by thy name ; 
thou art Mine. When thou passes t through the 
waters, I will be with thee ; and through the 
rivers, they shall not overflow thee : when thou 
walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be 
burned ; neither shall the flame kindle upon 
thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy 
One of Israel, thy Saviour. " " Be still, and 
know that I am God." " I am God, in wisdom, 
in love, as well as in power, in all My dis- 
pensations. " " Who is among you that walketh 
in darkness, and hath no light ? let him trust in 
the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." 
Bearing these consolations in mind, the servants 
of Christ cannot sorrow without hope. They 
cannot sorrow as do others, the children of this 
world. They may, indeed, be cast down, but 
know that they are not forsaken. There is that 
in the present which sustains, that in the future 
more than repays for all past and present suffer- 
ing. Let their " hearts be thus fixed trusting in 
the Lord," and there will be nothing to fear, 
either from the past and present, or from that 



20 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

which may come in the unknown and uncertain 
future. 

And, as the apostle exhorts these bereaved 
and sorrowing ones to be hopeful, so he gives 
them special grounds and reasons for this hope. 
" If," says he, " we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them also which sleep in 
Jesus will God bring with Him." This thought, 
in various forms, is presented and reiterated in the 
New Testament. To believe intelligently that 
Christ, the Head of His Church, — that is, of all 
His believing people, — died and rose again, and 
is exalted at the right hand of God, involves 
additionally the resurrection and life of His 
people. As they are in Christ, they are par- 
takers of Christ, — partakers of Christ not only 
in His death, but in His resurrection. " Be- 
cause I live," is His assurance, " ye shall live 
also." This it is that constitutes the basis of 
the great argument in the fifteenth chapter of 
first Corinthians. That Christ has " risen from 
the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that 
slept," or are sleeping in the repose of a blessed 
death, is urged as proof indisputable that they 
will rise also. They are in moral and spiritual 
connection, by faith and love, with Him now, — 



SORROW NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 21 

are in process of gradual transformation of the 
whole man to His divine image, and thus in 
preparation for the enjoyment of His heavenly 
presence. In a bodily organism, the members 
live as long as the head discharges its proper 
functions. On the other hand, the head cannot 
perfectly discharge these its appropriate func- 
tions, cannot healthfully live, while its subordi- 
nate members are removed or decaying. So is it 
with Christ and His people. That He lives, and 
will live forever, is a divine pledge and assurance 
that they live and will live also. He is the Vine, 
they are the branches. As long as the parent 
trunk sends out its nourishment, and the branches 
abide in it, those branches live. Christ is the 
Head, His believing people are the members. 
He Himself proclaims, that as He is the Resur- 
rection and the Life, so they that believe in Him 
shall live, though they die ; and that, thus believ- 
ing and living in Him, they shall not die forever. 
He tells us elsewhere, that where He is, He would 
have His disciples be. In that house of His and 
their Father, where there are many mansions, He 
has prepared a place for them. These are the 
reasons, not human, but divine, why the Chris- 
tian should not sorrow without hope for those 



22 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

who have fallen asleep in Him, who are resting 
from their labors, and their works following them. 
They have, it is true, departed from the eye of 
sight. But the eye of faith gazes up after them, 
in spite of the blinding tears of natural affection 
traces their heavenward course, and sees them 
with Christ. They are, indeed, absent from the 
body. But they are at home with the Lord. And 
we can begin to realize, almost without the ex- 
press dictate of inspiration, that thus to be at 
home with Him is " far better : " " far better " for 
them certainly, " far better " it may be for us — 
necessary it may be for us, purifying our hearts 
from the dross even of natural affection, laying 
up for us treasures in heaven, so that our hearts 
may there be constantly going. Those who have 
gone are the redeemed ones of Christ, — re- 
deemed by Him out of the bondage of corrup- 
tion, from all the powers of earthly temptation, 
into the blessed freedom of heavenly deliverance. 
They are with Christ : where Christ is, is heaven, 
are all the essentials of heavenly blessedness. 
For ourselves and for others, we may sorrow in 
view of their departure, but not hopelessly ; for 
the time is not far distant when we shall enjoy 
a blessed re-union. Until then we know that 



SORROW NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 23 

with them, all is well. " They are taken from 
the trouble to come," — from the trouble that 
always comes, of some kind or other, in earthly 
experience. "They have entered into peace. " 
" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord 
from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they 
may rest from their labours ; and their works do 
follow them." 

But there is a special time to which the 
apostle here calls attention as that in which 
these anticipations receive complete fulfilment. 
" If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, 
even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God 
bring with Him." Whatever the blessedness of 
Christ's people between death and resurrection, 
we find that this latter event is thus spoken of 
as its consummation. " When," says the apos- 
tle, " when Christ, which is our life, shall appear, 
then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." 
" He will come to be glorified in His saints, and 
to be admired of all them that believe." "We 
look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
shall change the body of our humiliation that it 
may be fashioned like unto the body of His exal- 
tation." " The Lord Himself shall descend from 
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch- 



24 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

angel, and with the trump of God : and the dead 
in Christ shall arise." " The dead shall be raised 
incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this 
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality." It is this event 
which puts an end to the sleep, even of the body ; 
which rolls away the stone from every sepulchre ; 
opens the mouth of every grave ; fills every ceme- 
tery with a living population ; summons alike the 
earth and the sea to give up their dead. It is this 
great event which puts an end, even to the sem- 
blance of death, which re-unites body and soul, 
and admits the whole man to a full participation 
of Christ in His heavenly kingdom. To this, 
therefore, we are pointed as the full consumma- 
tion alike of Divine promise and of human bless- 
edness. " When Christ, which is our life, shall 
appear, then shall we also appear with Him in 
glory." "The dead in Christ first shall arise, 
and then we or those who are then alive shall be 
caught up together with them in the clouds, to 
meet the Lord in the air : and so shall we, the 
risen dead and the changed living, be with the 
Lord " forever. There will thus be a perfect re- 
union of the risen Saviour with His people, and 
of these His people with each other, — an end- 



SORROW NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 2$ 

less re-union, which in its perfection and blessed- 
ness will more than compensate for any and 
every grief of previous separation. 

Such, then, are the words, and the truths con- 
tained in them, with which we are told, under the 
pressure of earthly bereavement, to comfort one 
another. Let us bear in mind to whom it is 
that this language has reference. It is consola- 
tion to those who are living in Christ in regard 
to those who in Christ have fallen asleep. Let 
us see that we are thus in Christ by a living 
faith in Him and His work, and then with these 
words we may comfort one another. "Them 
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." 
They who fell asleep in calm assurance com- 
mending their souls to Him as a merciful Lord 
and Saviour; they who passed away in the 
overpowering weakness of disease, the slumber 
of unconsciousness, the wandering of the ex- 
hausted mind, not even knowing that they 
were in the dark valley, or that their trusted 
Lord was leading them through safely ; they 
who departed doubting themselves, not doubt- 
ing Him, confiding in His love and grace and 
power, and praying with dying breath against 
their own unbelief; and they who were taken by 



26 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

Jesus Himself to the arms of His love before 
the trials of an evil world were encountered — 
the lambs of His fold, the like of whom even 
on earth is the kingdom of heaven, — in regard 
to all these may be appropriately employed the 
language of Divine consolation, "They are 
sleeping in Jesus ; and when Jesus comes in His 
glory, God will bring them with Him." 

And, if there be any wanting in such consola- 
tion, how suggestive this text as to the direction 
in which it must be sought. Be not, continue 
not, as those "that have no hope." We may, 
perhaps, live without the consolations of Christ's 
gospel while in health and prosperity, when 
all goes well with us, and the world around is 
smiling. Though even this is a poor substitute 
for that life of which we are capable. But how 
will it be when all in which we have trusted, and 
all that we have loved, is taken away from us, 
or we are about to be taken away from them ? 
Do we not need something stronger and better 
than any of these things — than this world can 
afford ? Can it be found, is it seriously offered, 
elsewhere than in the gospel of Christ? Here 
is our hope. It is a sufficient one, and it can- 
not disappoint. And we need place it before 



SORROW NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 1*J 

us, as a refuge and stay to the soul in the day of 
calamity. Take hold upon this hope, and make 
it your own. Lean upon the Lord Jesus as a 
Saviour, as a sympathizing Friend, — the Re- 
storer of the heart's lost treasures in a world of 
glory, — as able to sustain your spirit when those 
treasures by death are taken out of your sight. 
He is all-sufficient. His love is equal to His 
truth and power. And they are all alike pledged 
to the present and future welfare of His people. 
In that love and power and truth He says, 
"Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and 
heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." " Him 
that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast 
out* Amen. 



28 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 



II. 

THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLATION. 

u Fvr this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that 
we which are alive and remain unto the comiitg of the Lord 
shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Him- 
self shall descend from heaven with a shout \ with the voice 
of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead 
in Christ shall rise first : then we which are alive and remain 
shall be caught up together with them i?i the clouds, to meet 
the Lord i7i the air : and so shall we ever be with the Lord, 
Wherefore comfort one another with these words." — Thess. 
iv. 15-18. 

T N our examination of the verses immediately 
-*■ preceding, we were especially occupied with 
what may be regarded as the central truth of the 
whole passage, — that in it which gives signifi- 
cance to all the rest, and under which they all 
range themselves in their proper position. That 
central truth is the announcement to the mourner 
in Christ, over those who, in Christ, have de- 
parted by death, that to these departed ones 
there is, and will be, life at the coming of Christ, 
the consummated life of a blessed resurrection. 



THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLA TION. 29 

Christ ever liveth. They that are really in union 
with Him, and united in Him, cannot die. Par- 
takers of His nature, they are partakers of His 
life. " Because I live," is His own assurance, 
" ye live also." So long as remains this rock, 
the life of Christ, as the foundation, so long will 
remain the superstructure, His people's life, 
resting upon that foundation. 

But while thus occupied with this great truth 
of life in Christ for all His people, this passage 
also brings to view certain particulars, connected 
with this truth, of the deepest interest and im- 
portance. The apostle, as we have seen, first 
tells his Thessalonian disciples that " them that 
sleep in Jesus, God will bring with Him." And 
he then tells them of the manner in which He 
will do this ; of the endless re-union of the living 
and the dead following thereupon ; of their com- 
mon blessedness in the eternal # presence and 
kingdom of their ascended and glorified Saviour 
and Master. That Master Himself shall bring 
about this result. The apostle, " by the word 
of that Master," gives them such assurance. 
This " Lord Himself shall descend from heaven 
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, 
and with the trump of God : and first the dead 



30 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

in Christ shall arise : then we which are alive 
and remain shall be caught up together with 
them in the clouds." Or, as he says elsewhere, 
" The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall 
arise, and we shall be changed. Then shall be 
brought to pass the saying, Death is swallowed 
up in victory.' ' 

To these momentous truths, let us endeavor 
to give our attention. These words of the apos- 
tle, it may be said, bring strange things to our 
ears. They are not indeed strange in the fact 
that we have not heard of them before. But 
they are so in their substance ; in their relations 
to our own and to all previous human experi- 
ence ; to many in the fact that their meaning 
has never been fully appreciated. It is a very 
different matter, let us bear in mind, this of as- 
senting to, or rather not positively denying, what 
others say or feelieve, and really believing it our- 
selves. It is a very different thing, this usage of 
words, which are to us doubly dead by repeti- 
tion from childhood, and the clear understand- 
ing of those words in their life and power, — 
as winged and living forms of truth, — angels of 
power and of light sent down from the Source 
of power and of light to move upon the souls of 



THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLA TION. 3 1 

men, and to incite them to action. Many an 
one who supposes that he understands, and even 
believes, the language of this text, if his spirit 
were really aroused to see its meaning, would be 
revolutionized, transformed, and at once, as to 
his whole character, principles, and objects of 
existence. This, in fact, is the great difficulty 
at the present time with the ministry of gospe] 
truth. It is not persecution or open opposition, a 
spirit of rampant infidelity, of positive dislike and 
repugnance. These to a certain extent, and in 
particular cases, are, of course, to be anticipated. 
But the great difficulty is one of another character, 
— a spirit of indifference. Sometimes it is the in- 
difference of disregard, — sometimes that of dull, 
dead assent, — the drowsy and forgetful hear- 
ing, which retains nothing because it really takes 
in nothing, which hears and receives orthodox 
words and phrases without attaching to them 
any definite meaning. Against this kind of 
hearing, all need be on their guard. There is 
a living freshness in divine truth, which will ever 
reward our attention. Especially is this the 
case when such truth, like that of the text, has 
to do with our future and eternal condition. 
We are dying yet ever-living creatures. Here 



32 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

are words from Heaven as to our state beyond 
this world, and that of Christ's people. They 
are words of comfort. We are told to comfort 
ourselves with them. What, let us ask, is their 
substance ? What is the nature of this comfort 
which they administer? Are we in a state for 
its proper reception? 

One of the first of these truths of which we 
are thus informed, is that of the continuance of 
a portion of our race, of some of Christ's people 
among the rest, alive until the day of His final 
coming. " We which are alive " when Christ 
comes, shall be caught up together with our 
friends now buried, who shall first rise from 
their sleep. "We shall not all sleep," is the 
accordant statement elsewhere. " We shall not 
all sleep " in death. Some will be found alive 
when Christ comes, to be glorified in His saints, 
and to pronounce judgment upon His enemies 
and opposers. " Christ will then come," in the 
language of the Creed, " to judge both the quick" 
— that is, the living — " and the dead." We shall 
not all sleep in death : many will be alive in the 
day of Christ's coming. A writer of this century 
has imagined the fact of a last man, — a lonely 
human being consciously surviving the wreck of 



THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLATION. 33 

his race, and yet, in his loneliness and desola- 
tion, looking up to God, his Creator and Saviour, 
for the fulfilment of His promises of endless 
life and blessing. But such conception, how- 
ever striking or beautiful as poetry, is not in 
accordance with these inspired declarations. 
The implications and the direct statements of 
Scripture frequently bring before us this fact 
of the text, that, when Christ comes, He will find 
a world of living inhabitants, — many of them, as 
in the days of Noah, not anticipating any thing 
of the kind ; others waiting for it in earnest 
prayer and expectation. He thus comes, — men 
seeing Him come down from heaven, as His 
disciples saw Him go up into heaven, to raise 
the dead, and change the living, preparative to 
their final state of existence. " As often," says 
the apostle, "as ye eat this bread, and drink 
this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till He 
come." The Lord's Supper is thus a remem- 
brance of Him and His work in His first com- 
ing. It is also a prophetic pledge of His second 
coming, — a prophecy which goes on repeating 
itself, and, like all prophecy, becoming brighter 
and clearer as to its meaning, until it melts away 
and is absorbed in the perfect light of actual 



34 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE, 

and blessed fulfilment ; the Master coming, ac- 
cording to His own intimation, " to partake " with 
His disciples " of the fruit of the vine, new in the 
kingdom of God." " The last companies of those 
disciples shall be sitting, perchance, at His table ; 
their hearts burning within them as the bleed- 
ing love of his first advent rises to their view, 
and longing for the daybreak of His second 
appearing. They scarce venture to hope that 
the time for the flight of the shadows has come. 
Yet, remembering those endeared words, 'As 
often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye 
do shew the Lord's death till He come,' the 
question steals across them, What if it should be 
even now? Scarcely has the thought entered, 
when, lo, a strange sensation is felt by them all ! 
The spirit of each glows and brightens as never 
it had done before. Each looks to his fellow 
as if to ask, What is this? It is the daystar 
arising in their hearts. In a moment, in the 
twinkling of an eye, their Lord is with them. 
It is Himself. He has come at last in the glory 
of His second appearing ; and themselves, and 
the poor and earthly tables at which they sit, 
are transfigured into shining guests, and a table 
never to be drawn." " We shall not all sleep." 



THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLATION. 35 

Some shall be alive at Christ's coming. But all, 
whether living or dead, shall be changed. "For 
this corruptible," with both, alike with the risen 
dead and the changed living, must put on in- 
corruption, and this mortal must put on immor- 
tality. Then shall be brought to pass the saying 
that is written, " Death is swallowed up in 
victory." " The Lord Himself," on this great 
occasion, and to accomplish this work of per- 
fected redemption, " shall descend from heaven 
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel 
and the trump of God." 

And, with this revelation of the continuance of 
a portion of Christ's people alive until the time 
of His appearing, is connected another of no little 
interest, — the equality, the similar condition, 
of those who shall be raised from the dead with 
this class ; the fact that in the resurrection, those 
who have died previously, and whose bodies 
have slumbered in their graves for centuries, and 
have been resolved to their original elements, 
— that these shall be restored, and be in a like 
condition with the changed living. " This we 
say unto you, by the word of the Lord," mak- 
ing the announcement emphatic, and giving it 
specific Divine authority, — " this we say unto 



$6 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

you, by the word of the Lord, that we which are 
alive and remain shall not prevent " — go before, 
or have pre-eminence over — " them that are 
asleep." In bringing out this truth, the apostle 
corrected an error prevailing in the minds of some 
of those to whom he was writing. In so doing, 
however, he also provided for a natural infirmity 
of the human mind in all ages. It is compara- 
tively easy to believe that one, who, like Enoch 
and Elijah, had never seen death, or that one, 
who, like our Lord, had ascended to heaven in 
bodily form, or that, like those who will be found 
living at His coming, — it is comparatively easy 
to believe, that such as these still living, may 
have experience of a bodily change, by which 
they are prepared for a heavenly existence. 
But the bodily resurrection of the dead, the 
coming to life again in the body of those whom 
we have seen die, the quickening and germina- 
tion of those precious seeds with which our 
cemeteries and graveyards are so thickly sown, 
the literal giving up by the earth and sea of 
their dead, — how much more difficult is this to 
the natural understanding, to the natural capa- 
city of believing reception ! How even the re- 
newed mind and heart faint and falter as it is 



THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLATION. 37 

contemplated ! What an offence to human 
philosophy ! How easily demonstrated to be 
absurd by human science ! How often has it 
been proved impossible in the analogies of the 
naturalist, disappeared under the knife of the 
anatomist, and evaporated in the laboratory of 
the chemist ! And, just leaving out one thing, 
which these demonstrations always do leave out, 
-the truth of a living God, — leaving out this 
fact of a God, how perfectly absurd is this notion 
of life from the dead, — any affirmation that it will 
take place ! But making allowance in our argu- 
ments for such truth, and how perfectly rational 
and easy is the inspired conclusion ! Is it " a 
thing incredible that God "—not man nor angel — 
" that God should raise the dead ? " that Omnipo- 
tence, to us an incomprehensible power, should 
exert itself in what to us is an incomprehensible 
way ? Cannot He who gives life, restore it, — re- 
store it in any one or all of its previous manifes- 
tations? 

To meet this infirmity of the natural under- 
standing, and even of the renewed mind and 
heart, and to enable man fully to take in and 
appreciate this truth of a resurrection, the doc- 
trine is brought before us in this form, and with 



38 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

these specifications. Those who shall not die 
at all, and those who have died ages and gener- 
ations before, are put on the same footing. 
They are alike described as putting off the. cor- 
ruptible and the mortal, and putting on the 
incorruptible and the immortal. "We which 
are alive and remain shall not go before, have 
any pre-eminence of, them that are asleep.' ' 
The same Almighty power which changes the 
living, will raise and transform the dead, — will 
prepare them both for their new state of heavenly 
existence. 

But this truth is still more forcibly presented 
in view of that by which it is followed, — the order 
of events in the resurrection. " First, the dead 
in Christ shall arise, and then, after that," we 
which are alive and remain unto the coming of 
the Lord shall not prevent them which are 
asleep. The apostle does not here mean to 
teach that he, or any of those to whom he was 
writing, would live to witness the events of which 
he was speaking. The exact time of those events 
the coming of the Lord and its accompaniments, 
then were unknown, had not been revealed either 
to the apostles or their hearers. There seems 
to have been with these Thessalonian disciples, 



THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLA TION. 39 

as with others of the early believers, the impres- 
sion that it was immediately at hand, and this to 
such a degree as to interfere with the performance 
of ordinary duty. The apostle, in the Epistle fol- 
lowing, warns them of such impression as perhaps 
derived from his language, and they are told of 
certain things in view of which it was delayed. 
As, however, the time was unknown, and that of 
the continuance of causes of delay, they are 
told to be ever in a state of preparation. To 
the apostle himself as to them this time was not 
revealed. And, therefore, identifying himself 
with the Church in this its possibility, he speaks 
in the first person. His main object, indeed, 
seems to have been to impress upon them the 
spiritual nature of that kingdom and life to 
which in the service of Christ they were looking 
forward. This he secures by the distinct an- 
nouncement that the resurrection of the dead 
precedes the full coming of this kingdom ; that 
consequently it is in another state of existence, 
that Christ's highest promises receive their ful- 
filment. "I will come again," is the language 
of the Master, not to remain with you upon 
earth, a but to take you to Myself." "In My 
Father's house are many mansions which are 



40 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

prepared for you." First the dead in Christ 
shall arise ; and then with them and the living, 
shall all these assurances be verified. " We look 
for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall 
change the body of our humiliation/ ' whether 
that body be mouldering in the grave, or living 
upon earth, " that it may be fashioned like unto 
His own glorious body." "As we have been 
planted in the likeness of His death, so shall we 
spring up in the likeness of His resurrection." 
Such resurrection and transformation precede 
the fulfilment of Christ's highest promises. 

The nature of that fulfilment is revealed in 
what follows: "We shall be caught together 
with them in the air to meet the Lord." There 
is first the blessed union of Christ's people with 
Him, their blessed re-union with each other; 
this union and re-union in a sphere of being and 
of knowledge which includes joyful recognition. 
How it may be as to such recognition prior to 
the events here described, we are not so clearly 
informed. Though it would seem, from the 
parable of Dives and Lazarus, and from the 
vision of Isaiah of the fall of the king of 
Babylon, that such recognition may take place 
prior to the resurrection. When, moreover, the 



THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLATION. 4 1 

apostle longed to " depart and to be with Christ/ ' 
to be " absent from the body that he might be 
present with the Lord/' his language naturally 
implies anticipated recognition of that Master, 
— as does that of the Master Himself to the 
dying malefactor. But whatever the extent of 
such implications, as to the interval between 
death and the resurrection, all is cleared up in 
the scriptural account of that event and what 
follows. Our Lord consoles His disciples with 
the assurance of their being with Him and 
with each other in the heavenly mansions. The 
very nature of this consolation which He admin- 
isters, and of the blessed communion to which 
He points them, imply a continuance of the 
love and sympathy already existing. He prays, 
moreover, not only that the chosen twelve shall 
be in the enjoyment of these heavenly bless- 
ings, but that all of His people, and forever, be 
partakers of them. He speaks elsewhere even 
of those who are cast out, as seeing Abraham 
and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 
suggesting the natural inference that those 
who would forever be companions of these patri- 
archs would see and recognize them also. In 
the text, again, the apostle holds up to those 



42 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

who were mourners, the prospect of future re- 
union with their departed objects of affection. 
But what comfort or joy is there in a re-union, 
or in the prospect of a re-union, of which the 
parties shall be ignorant as it takes place, — a re- 
union in which there is no recognition? This 
would be to make and keep the promise to the 
ear while it was broken to the heart, — a thing 
which God never does. His fulfilments always 
go beyond our apprehension of them. These 
promises, moreover, have reference, not to dis- 
embodied spirits, but to those who in bodily 
form are transformed as living or raised from 
the dead ; the corruptible putting on incorrup- 
tion, the mortal putting on immortality, — in- 
corruption and immortality of the whole man, 
bodily as well as spiritual. 

We may therefore, without hesitation, take 
this promise in its fullest significance. Him 
whom, "not having seen, we love," we shall 
then see and know, — seeing Him as He is. And, 
shining in His image, like Him indeed, and 
yet still themselves, retaining those lineaments 
which we once loved on earth, shall we recog- 
nize those who left us weeping, or whom we left 
weeping, in this world of death and separation. 



THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLA TIOJV. 43 

When Christ appears, "we shall see Him as He 
is," — shall know Him even as we are known. 
They that rise in His image shall know each 
other ; shall recognize those in the Lord, who, 
associating with them on earth, have met again in 
heaven. The same sympathies which unite them 
here, will unite them there. They will be still 
serving the same Master, actuated by the same 
motive, — love to Him, and desire for His glory. 
And there in heaven, as here on earth, in com- 
munion with Him, and in the light of His loving 
approval, they receive their full reward, enjoy 
their highest blessedness. 

But there is needed one thing more to make 
this matter complete and perfect ; and that one 
thing is added, — the assurance that this blessed- 
ness is permanent, without end. " So shall we be 
with the Lord forever." So, thus united with 
Him, and His living members, redeemed by Him 
as heirs of glory, so shall we remain forever. It 
is, indeed, a blessed hope, this of being with our 
Lord, and of being re-united with those from 
whom, by death, we have been separated. It 
would be so if such re-union were but for a 
time. They who know the aching void of sepa- 
ration, have often felt, and given expression to 



44 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

the feeling, that, for such privilege, enjoyed only 
for a few hours or a few moments, they would 
be willing to make any sacrifice, undergo any 
privation. Estimate, O aching heart, if you can, 
how such privilege would be enjoyed, with what 
price it would be secured ! Only a few words, 
one more embrace, one opportunity of telling what 
even we ourselves did not know until they were 
gone, — how much and deeply we loved them ! 
But when this was over, and it came to an end 
and the beloved object again vanished from sight 
and embrace, how bitter the grief of this new 
separation ! How would every sad experience 
of the past be deepened and heightened as to its 
intensity ! There is that in human nature, when 
it is fully awakened, which asks for permanence, 
— permanence in its highest phase of existence ; 
which will not and can not be satisfied with any 
thing transitory and perishing. Any form of life, 
intellectual, moral, or social, which has an end, 
fails in meeting this high instinct of our common 
humanity. Peculiarly is this the case in the 
sphere of human affection. Man's heart is im- 
mortal. Its yearnings and cravings will hear of 
nothing temporal and limited. It feels its capa- 
city of loving forever, refuses to think of its affec- 



THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLA TION. 45 

tions as ever terminating, except as by its own 
will, and at the expense of great grief and suffer- 
ing. This instinct of immortality, — of the im- 
mortality of life, of being, and of love, — with 
which God Himself has endowed us, He has also 
in His gospel provided the means of satisfying. 
He does this by the revelation of a life of 
blessedness which has no ending. "We shall 
be with the Lord forever.' ' We shall not only 
be raised, those who die, and be changed, those 
who live ; we shall not only be caught up, to- 
gether with these lost objects of our affection, to 
meet our common Master ; we shall not only be 
admitted with them to those mansions in the 
Father's house prepared for our reception : some- 
thing more God has created these hearts of ours 
to need, to yearn for, and to ask. And this ob- 
ject of our desires and aspirations He has pro- 
vided. "We shall be ever with the Lord." 
Our union with Him, and our re-union with each 
other, are endless. We shall never again know 
the pang and agony of death and separation. 
Those words which are ever sounding in our ears 
on earth, those thoughts which our minds can 
never exclude, those emotions from which our 
hearts can never be entirely free, are banished 



46 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

forever from heaven. " There shall be no more 
death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more 
pain." The Lord Jesus Himself tells us that 
" the children of the resurrection shall not die any 
more ; " that they that " believe in Him, though 
they die, yet shall they live ; " and that, " thus 
living and believing in Him, they shall live 
forever." 

This, then, is the message from Heaven to the 
Christian mourner at the graves of those who 
have fallen asleep in Jesus. "Wherefore," says 
the inspired apostle, having delivered this mes- 
sage, " wherefore with these words comfort your- 
selves." Is there not comfort in them? Does 
it not go beyond any and all that can be obtained 
elsewhere ? Is there any other to be thought of 
in comparison with this? any that, in fact, de- 
serves the name? The open grave closes the 
worldling's mouth ; or, if he venture to speak, 
it is only to proclaim that he has no hope, — '■ no 
real ground of hope or consolation. Forgetful- 
ness, and absorption in trifles, is the world's rem- 
edy for a broken heart, for the bleeding wounds 
of bereaved affection, — those wounds again to 
be torn open with every new separation, to be 
plastered over again with the same miserable 



THE WORD OF DIVINE CONSOLATION. 47 

remedy ; the process to be repeated until that 
heart itself grows hopelessly cold, and is hope- 
lessly buried in the grave of the worldling. What 
a life and what a death for an immortal being ! 
And yet how many, with the blessings of the 
gospel before them, with this light from heaven 
shining all around them, and upon every step of 
their earthly journey, are living such life, and 
dying such death, in every hour of our world's 
continuance ! It behoves us to recognize these 
things, — the possibilities of our own action and 
its consequences. Those who, through faith, are 
heirs of the divine promises, should rejoice in 
their privileges. Those who are still living only 
for this world should recognize its emptiness, 
cease to strive for, and absorb themselves in, its 
transient and unsatisfying objects. This is not 
our home. Here we cannot stay. Here those 
who are with us cannot stay. Why not place 
our treasures, and induce those who are with us 
to place theirs, where they cannot be lost or 
taken away? Why not lay them up in that 
heaven where they cannot be disturbed or di- 
minished, — where they go on increasing for- 
ever? God Himself commands and urges us 
so to do. He presents the highest motives, the 



48 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

most sacred and constraining considerations, as 
urging us to immediate and decided action. At 
the same time, the most terrific possibilities clus- 
ter around our neglect or indecision. Let us 
act while we may. We are now upon the field 
of action. Any moment future may sweep us 
aside from it, and forever. " Seek ye the Lord 
while He may be found, call ye upon Him while 
He is near." If ye thus " seek after Him, ye 
shall find Him, when ye seek for Him with all 
your heart." Finding Him, you find life, — life 
not only here, but in an endless and blessed 
hereafter. Amen. 



THE REST OF GOD'S PEOPLE. 49 



III. 

THE REST OF GOD'S PEOPLE. 

iC There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." 
— Heb. iv. 9. 

T^HE inspired writer is here speaking of that 
* heavenly rest or sabbath reserved for God's 
people, which had been typified in the sabbath 
morning of creation, and subsequently by the 
Canaan rest or repose of Israel after the toilsome 
journeyings and trials of the wilderness of Sinai. 
Amidst the storm of persecution and trial to which 
these early believers and followers of a crucified 
Saviour were exposed, they are reminded of 
that rest which ever " remaineth to the people 
of God." They are exhorted to strive for its 
attainment, to guard against unbelief, un watch- 
fulness, or weariness in their Christian progress. 
" There remaineth therefore a rest to the people 
of God." " He that is entered into his rest, he 
also hath ceased from his own works, as God did 
from His. Let us labor therefore to enter into 



50 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE, 

that rest, lest any man fall after the same example 
of unbelief ; " that is, the failure and example of 
the unbelieving Israelites who perished in the 
wilderness. 

This figure under which the state of the glori- 
fied and blessed dead is here brought to our view, 
is that one perhaps, of all others presented in 
Scripture, which can, in our present earthly con- 
dition, be most fully appreciated. Our clearest 
views of a heavenly world, our most satisfying 
conceptions of its realities, are those that are 
negative. Even the pen of inspiration does 
not essay a full and positive description of the 
inheritance reserved for the faithful in the king- 
dom of Gcd. It tells us what it is not. " It is 
incorruptible," without destructibility : "it fadeth 
not away forever." "There shall be no more 
death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more 
pain." " There shall be no more sea." " There 
shall be no night there, and they need no candle, 
neither light of the sun." If it were lawful or 
possible for the positive realities of heaven to be 
put in words of human utterance, it would, even 
then, be impossible for the human mind and 
heart fully to take in their meaning. We some- 
times endeavor to think of the height of bliss to 



THE REST OF GOD'S PEOPLE. 5 I 

which the redeemed and glorified spirit is exalted, 
of those positive delights and joys and sources of 
blessing which are forevermore at the right hand 
of God ; but all such efforts only convince us 
of our imperfection. The mind sinks back ex- 
hausted and dissatisfied. Its highest concep- 
tions consist in the removal of what is im- 
perfect, — that which interferes with earthly 
or heavenly happiness. Beyond these negative 
ideas of rest and peace, of release from pain and 
care and solicitude, we must rest, and wait for 
the teaching of heavenly experience. So far as 
they go, they are correct, — are sources of pres- 
ent strength and consolation ; but, as is the case 
with all negatives, they give no adequate con- 
ception of the great reality. 

And yet that conception so far as given is 
full of precious significance. To what it con- 
tains and implies, we may profitably direct our 
examination. The people of God, " the blessed 
company of God's faithful people," having ac- 
complished their work here on earth, are thus 
spoken of as entering into their rest, literally, " on 
their sabbath- keeping." This is still further 
spoken of as God's rest, or sabbath, — God's rest 
as having been prepared by Him for His people ; 



52 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

God's rest, moreover, as in certain respects like 
that rest upon which He Himself entered after the 
work of creation. " He that is entered into his 
rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as 
God did from His." Life, as a season of trial 
and probation, of duty and of effort, is one of 
toil and exertion, is one of weariness, a toilsome 
pilgrimage through an alien region to a heavenly 
home. When this season and pilgrimage are 
ended, the soul enters upon its rest, — a rest un- 
broken and eternal, — to know of no abatement 
nor diminution. " Blessed are the dead who die 
in the Lord, for they rest from their labors." 
" He that hath entered into his rest, hath also 
ceased, hath ceased forever from his labors." 

What, then, is meant when it is said of such 
an one, " He hath ceased from his labors, as God 
did from His " ? In what respect is this rest of 
God, in the first sabbath morning of creation, 
similar to that eternal sabbath of the heavenly 
home, that rest in the heavenly kingdom to 
which the child of God is looking forward? 

First, then, this form of expression implies the 
fact of cessation from labor. Herein consists 
the main point of resemblance between the rest 
of God in creation and the final rest of His re- 



THE REST OF GOD'S PEOPLE. 53 

deemed people. " God saw every thing that He 
had made, and behold it was very good." " On 
the seventh day, God ended His work, and He 
rested'* — that is, He ceased — "from all His 
work which He had made." Not that we are to 
suppose, from this language, that "the Lord," 
" the everlasting God," " the Creator of the ends 
of the earth, fainteth, or is capable of being 
wearied ; " but mainly to give us the idea of 
cessation from the work of creating ; of the ap 
proval and satisfaction with which that work was 
contemplated. The teeming week-days of crea- 
tion had evolved light, order, and loveliness out 
of chaos, darkness, and desolation. In each 
successive stage of creative movement, the Di- 
vine Architect, well pleased, saw His work that 
it was good ; " and on the seventh day, God 
ended His work, and He rested, ceased from all 
His work which He had made." The work of 
creation was brought to a close : that close was 
regarded with satisfaction. 

And so, also, we may say of the servant of 
God, as he passes from the toil and strife of 
earthly life to that which is heavenly, as he is 
admitted within the gates of the heavenly Jeru- 
salem, " He has ceased from his labors." Life's 



54 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

work is done, and its result is satisfying. It 
may not, indeed, be the rest, the cessation, 
which follows weariness and exhaustion; of 
one fainting, and overcome by the toils and 
cares of his earthly pilgrimage. Like as the 
great leader of the hosts of Israel, who looked 
with dying glance from the mountains of Moab 
upon the plains and valleys of a terrestrial 
Canaan, and then with strength unabated, and 
eye undimmed, gazed upward to a still fairer in- 
heritance celestial, so may it be, so sometimes 
is it, with the dying believer. It may be that 
his vigor is greater at the close than at any 
preceding period of his labors. Strong in that 
strength which all receive who trust in the Lord 
of hosts, he may have met and foiled the great 
Adversary in his most insidious, approaches. It 
may be, in such case, the mere ceasing of the 
warrior, in all his strength and vigor, and in the 
very moment of victory. And yet, even in such 
case, the change will be felt as most grateful. 
The soul will have entered upon a rest and per- 
fect peace, of which previously there could have 
been no conception, — a rest, in its first experi- 
ence, and forever afterwards, giving rise to the 
purest delight and satisfaction. At our best 



THE REST OF GOD'S PEOPLE. 55 

and highest estate, in this present world, we are 
made to feel that we are surrounded by opposing 
influences. We are living in opposition to a 
world of sin. And that world is living and 
acting in constant opposition to us, as engaged 
in the service of God. If we find ourselves 
resting in this world, we may well fear that there 
is deficiency somewhere, in spirit, or in the 
performance of duty. The servant and soldier 
of Christ must be ever casting off and aside 
the works of darkness ; must ever be in the 
armor of light. This his armor cannot be laid 
aside, for he is amongst enemies. His loins 
must be girt about, and his weapons in place ; 
for at any moment he may be assaulted by the 
legions of evil. Under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances, therefore, the servant of God, who 
emerges from the warfare and toil of earthly 
life, into the pure and sinless atmosphere of that 
which is heavenly, will recognize that it is, in- 
deed, a great and blissful change that has been 
accomplished. There is rest, — rest and peace 
which this earth cannot give, — not here, but 
hereafter, which remaineth for the people of 
God ; of which God's people, as they are ad- 
mitted to His presence, have the blessed experi- 
ence. 



$6 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

Not less is this the case, with reference to the 
rest or deliverance, in this change, from opposing 
and distracting influences, not so much of a 
spiritual as of a temporal character. Apart 
from those labors or toils of the Christian 
which involve the element of temptation or en- 
ticement to sin, are those of earthly care and 
perplexity, the vicissitudes and sorrows, and 
troubles to a greater or less degree, of every 
earthly condition. With many of the children 
of men, and in reference to earthly experiences 
of this character, it may be said, that 

u Life is a torrid day, 

Parched by the wind and sun ; 
And death the calm, cool eve, 
When the weary day is done." 

" Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly up- 
ward ; " and, of these troubles, the servant of 
God has his due portion. But, supposing this 
the smallest amount possible, what has been 
said is applicable to its removal, — the rest of 
release upon which the redeemed spirit enters, 
whenever these lightest possible of earthly trials 
and labors are ended. Life, in such case, may 
have been a scene of almost unclouded peace 
and prosperity. All the good things of this 



THE REST OF GOD'S PEOPLE. 57 

world, with the smile of the Giver, may have 
been richly enjoyed. All of life's sweet, with 
the slightest possible dash of its bitter, may 
have filled the earthly cup. Want and care and 
pain, the anxiety of solicitude for others, the 
desolation and sinking of heart occasioned by 
bereavement or separation from beloved objects 
of affection, the sympathy of suffering through 
the misfortunes of those in whose welfare we are 
most deeply concerned, — all these may have 
been scarcely known, or of but slight experience. 
And yet, even this is not the cloudless sky of 
that eternal sabbath morning of rest which lies 
beyond. However clear the earthly atmosphere, 
however cloudless the earthly sky, there are 
always probable and possible clouds and storms 
below the horizon. No man knows, even in his 
day of highest earthly prosperity, what the next 
moment may bring forth. They, too, who know 
least of these things by experience, know much 
of them in the solicitude of anticipation. To 
pass merely from this region of probable change 
for the worse, to one of unending rest and assur- 
ance for the better, is a great and blessed change 
for an immortal being. The difference between 
this unbroken rest of heaven, and any and all 



58 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

of these resting-places on earth, is that of the 
pilgrim and stranger by the roadside, and that 
same pilgrim at home, surrounded by, and de- 
lighting in, the scenes and associations of child- 
hood, — his objects of permanent interest and 
satisfaction. 

And, if such be the change and difference 
with these, how must it be with others, less 
favored, alike in their earthly and spiritual con- 
dition? If those, who, during their temporal 
probation, have enjoyed the greatest advantages, 
and have been placed under the most favorable 
circumstances both temporally and spiritually, 
find this rest so grateful and satisfying, how must 
it be with those whose earthly lot has been of 
an adverse character? How will it be with him 
whose temporal difficulties and troubles have 
abounded ; who more than once, during his 
long and weary pilgrimage, has been forced to 
drink of the waters of Marah ; whose soul has 
not only died within him under the heavy burden 
of privation and trouble and sorrow, but whose 
condition, spiritually, has been one of severe 
trial and danger, and almost overpowering temp- 
tation ? If the victorious warrior, in all the flush 
and pride of undiminished vigor, looks back 



THE REST OE GOD'S PEOPLE. 59 

thankfully and for the last time upon the field 
of his victories, looks forward with joy to his 
unending reward, how is it with him whose con- 
flict with the enemy was more unequal, who, 
pressed, and hard beset, even to the last mo- 
ment, with dying hand strikes down that enemy, 
and then himself falls exhausted, in the moment 
of victory, a fainting conqueror on the threshold 
of heaven ! Who shall describe, or even in 
this world attempt to conceive, his emotions in 
the first consciousness of eternal safety, in his 
first entrance upon that sabbath which remain- 
eth to the people of God, in his first reception 
of that peace which shall know of no diminution 
forever ? He is at home, — in his Father's 
house • he shall " no more go out ; " "he rests 
from his labors ; " " his works follow him." 

And as, in this great change, there is the rest 
of cessation, typified in the Divine rest from 
creation, so is there in it, and additionally, as 
in that Divine cessation, the rest of approval, 
of retrospective satisfaction. In the sabbath of 
creation, there was not simply a ceasing from 
work. The works were of such character that 
they were looked upon with satisfying approval. 
11 On the seventh day God ended his work ; and 



60 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

God saw every thing that He had made, and, 
behold, it was very good." Thus also will it be 
in certain respects with the servant of God in 
his heavenly rest, in the blessedness of its ex- 
perience. He will have ceased from his labors, 
will have entered upon his rest, — a rest full of 
joy and self- approval, as it looks back upon the 
past labor of life, in the service of a Heavenly 
Saviour and Benefactor. " A good man is satis- 
fied from himself," as he goes on in his course, 
as he looks over that course, whether during his 
earthly journey, or after that journey has drawn 
to its close. Such is ever the sustaining and 
elevating influence of a good conscience, quick- 
ened by Divine grace, in our present state ; 
much more in the light and assurance of a 
heavenly world. The redeemed spirit, informed 
and purified, will look back with grateful emotion 
upon the experiences and efforts of its earthly pil- 
grimage, — the act of earnest and faithful obedi- 
ence ; of self-denial for the benefit of others, or 
the advancement of the Master's work and king- 
dom ; the prayer of faith finding its origin in a 
spirit o*f dependence upon Divine blessing ; the 
deed of benevolence in love to Christ, and to 
those for whom Christ died ; the resistance to 



THE REST OF GOD'S PEOPLE. 6 1 

temptation, and of opposition to evil and sin ; 
the sorrow of penitence in view of past failure, 
— all these, making up the labor and struggle and 
often agonizing conflict of the past, as over and 
forever ended, in their retrospect, will give rise 
to that peace that passeth all understanding. 
The whole of the Christian life will thus be 
recognized as the beginning of everlasting obe- 
dience, of endless perfection, of perfect blessed- 
ness. It will then be seen and understood that 
no earnest effort has been wasted, that no faithful 
prayer has gone unheard, no labor of love unre- 
warded, no struggle against evil and sin unnoted. 
As parts and portions of the work from which 
the spiritual laborer is resting, and which he 
contemplates, in the distant retrospect, they fill 
his rest with gratitude and thanksgiving. As 
labors for God and for the advancement of His 
glory, as dictated by the grace of His Spirit, 
they are seen to have been good, — such as can 
be remembered and thought of with the delight 
of satisfaction, of self-approval, with the assur 
ance that they are approved and rewarded by 
Him in whose service they were rendered. 

And, as in the rest of retrospection as to per- 
sonal experience and self-approval, so will it be 



62 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

in that of gratitude and thanksgiving in view of 
the Divine providence and grace and love run- 
ning through all those experiences, and shaping 
them to their final conclusion. The care of a 
loving and providing Father will be seen as 
having been over His servant and child in all 
the events of his earthly pilgrimage. That re- 
deemed soul will behold dangers averted, of 
which in their experience he was ignorant ; temp- 
tations overcome, not in his own, but in Divine, 
strength ; afflictions which he endeavored to 
escape, but which were needed for his safety and 
spiritual welfare. The happy junctures of events, 
here regarded as accidental, will there be recog- 
nized as interpositions of providential love and 
wisdom, — interpositions upon which depended 
the welfare of more than one immortal spirit, 
both for time and eternity. • All will then be seen 
to have been working together for good to the 
servant of God, — to those who with humble and 
faithful hearts were engaged in the service of a 
heavenly Master. " He shall give His angels 
charge concerning thee." This fact, running 
parallel with the course of the past earthly 
history, will be fully recognized. The good 
hand of God over each step of that progress, 



THE REST OF GOD'S PEOPLE. 63 

the Divine grace revealing itself in the work and 
love of an all-sufficient Saviour; bringing the 
soul to a knowledge of His salvation, and sus- 
taining it in its heavenward course, — these, as 
recognized, will constitute material of heavenly- 
gratitude and thanksgiving. It is not, let us re- 
member, the mere consciousness of perfect safety, 
of full deliverance, which constitutes the blessed- 
ness of the rest of the redeemed and glorified 
soul. It is not merely the retrospect of past toils, 
trials, labors, temptations, and sufferings, never 
again to be encountered. But it is the grateful 
recognition of Divine goodness, the overwhelm- 
ing gratitude of deliverance from the bondage 
of sin and evil, of Divine guidance and protec- 
tion : this it is which gives harmony to the high- 
est anthems of the redeemed, which forms the 
topic of heavenly ascription, " Worthy is the 
Lamb that was slain," and who hath redeemed us 
to Himself, " to receive power, and riches, and 
wisdom, and strength, and blessing." " He that 
is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from 
his labors, as God did from His." And the great 
element which constitutes the peculiar blessed- 
ness of that rest, is a deep and overpowering 
gratitude to that all-merciful Father and Saviour 



64 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

and Benefactor, through whose work and grace 
that labor was rendered successful. 

Included in this last point, and yet to be profit- 
ably borne in mind, is that of the abundant 
sources of gratitude in the eternal reality, as of 
consolation in present anticipation, coming 
through earthly experiences of sorrow, calamity, 
and bereavement. " No such chastisement for 
the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous ; 
nevertheless afterwards it yieldeth the peace- 
able fruits of righteousness to them that are 
exercised thereby." Such is often the case be- 
fore life terminates, but most fully and certainly 
in the heavenly explanation. Whatever the pur- 
pose of these afflictive dispensations, and how- 
ever beneficial in their final results, the dispensa- 
tions themselves to human nature are grievous. 
To accomplish their divinely intended purpose, 
it is necessary that they should be so. One part 
of the trial in many cases is, that it is not easy 
to see the special design of any such chastening 
dispensation, — why one, rather than others, 
should be selected or repeated. All that can 
be done, is to recognize from whom it comes, 
who is permitting, who is overruling ; to say, 
" Even so, Father, for so to Thee it seemeth 



THE REST OE GOD'S PEOPLE, 65 

good ; and, seeming thus to Thee, it must to us 
be good, however dark, afflictive, or perplexing." 
What a revelation, as to every such experience, 
will come in a future world ! What a flood of 
light will be thrown by them upon the souPs 
past history, — upon the history of that soul's 
welfare and salvation, — and how abundant the 
occasions of heavenly rejoicing in the retrospect 
of many of these sources of earthly affliction ! 
The richest harvests of eternal bliss will be seen 
to have been watered with bitterest tears of tem- 
poral sorrow, the darkest and most threatening 
clouds to have been full of refreshing showers of 
divine mercy. He that went on his way through 
this world weeping, bearing precious seed, will 
come again in that heavenly world with joy, bear- 
ing his sheaves with him. He will rest from his 
labors, — those labors which involve the elements 
of suffering, privation, trial, and anxiety ; and 
those labors themselves — ay, even those most 
trying to flesh and blood — will be seen, in their 
endurance, to have had their full share in secur- 
ing this rest, — in heightening the bliss of its 
enjoyment. 

And here, as we dwell upon these words, and 
think of this rest, let us remember for whom it 



66 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

is said to be reserved, — the " people of God," 
— God's people, not only by creation and pres- 
ervation, but by redemption ; God's people, re- 
deemed by His grace and love in Christ Jesus ; 
God's people, as cordially accepting that grace, 
endeavoring to do His will, to place themselves 
at His disposal ; endeavoring to do the will of 
God, endeavoring to become like God, and thus 
manifest the perfection of His character. To 
such as these, there remaineth an endless and 
blessed rest. Whatever the storms and tempests 
of time, there is a haven of peace to which 
they can look forward. With this hope as 
an anchor, the soul may ride through all these 
storms in safety ; even while they are raging, 
may rejoice in hope of the glory of God. " The 
night is far spent, the day is at hand," — the 
night of toil and care and sorrow and anxiety, 
the day of heavenly rest and recompense. " Be 
thou faithful unto death," and He to whom that 
faithful service is rendered, will, in due time, 
"give thee a crown of life." Amen. 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 6? 



IV. 

JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 

" / am the resurrection, and the life : he that believeth in 
Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : and ivhosoezvr liveth 
and believeth in Me shall never die." — John xi. 25, 26. 

HP HE resurrection of Lazarus, with which, in 
* our minds, this language is naturally associ- 
ated, is one of the most remarkable of the vari- 
ous indications afforded, not only of the power 
of our blessed Lord, but of His Person \ of His 
deep interest in human nature, His sympathy 
with human affection and feeling, especially as 
under the pressure of affliction and bereavement. 
Jesus, with the resources of Omnipotence at his 
disposal, weeps in sympathy with the weepers by 
whom He is surrounded. Jesus, with the burden 
of His own sorrow and suffering, and with His 
own open grave not far distant before Him, 
stands at the grave of another for purposes of 
help and consolation. In this, His self-forgetful- 
ness, His self- forgetting sympathy, — forgetful 



68 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

alike of His power as of His suffering, and 
thoroughly identified in the sorrow and suffer- 
ing of others, — He manifests Himself as Jesus 
the Son of man, the " great High Priest, touched 
with a feeling of our infirmities ; " while in the 
result of that sympathy He no less clearly mani- 
fests Himself as " Jesus the Son of God," divinely 
possessed of all power for deliverance and con- 
solation. 

In the light it is of such manifestations that 
we intelligently read or hear the language of this 
declaration, " I am the resurrection, and the life : 
he " — every one — " that believeth in Me." 
Spoken, it would appear, to a single individual, 
it is, as to its substance and in its reference, uni- 
versal for all men and in all time. Whatever 
its meaning and application to Martha or to the 
disciples, the main substance of that meaning 
and application is to ourselves as to all to whom 
it is made known. We are called upon to 
endeavor to understand it, to make of it the 
proper improvement. If there be life and res- 
urrection for men, they are here. If not here, 
they are nowhere. If He who speaks in this 
language cannot be trusted, then we are without 
trust and without hope : we are in a world of 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 69 

hopeless delusion. Life is a round of vanity and 
emptiness, and death an eternal sleep, — it may 
be a frightful dream of hopeless misery. It be- 
hoves us to ascertain who it is that thus speaks, 
— what it is that He says to us, — the demand, 
in this His language, as in His person and char- 
acter, upon our attention and confidence. 

Giving our attention, therefore, first of all, to 
what is thus said, let us endeavor to see the 
meaning of this declaration. Our Lord here 
speaks of Himself as " the resurrection and the 
life." What kind of resurrection and life are 
thus spoken of and insured to men? In what 
manner, and upon what conditions, are they 
offered to our possession ? What is involved in 
such possession? A glance at the passage, with 
its connection, will help us to see the reply to 
these inquiries. 

Manifestly, then, we find in this language as- 
surance of life of some kind or other, perpetu- 
ated beyond that of the present, beyond the 
conditions of our present earthly existence. 
The nature of this life is to be looked for in 
the language and actions preceding and follow- 
ing. It is sometimes difficult, in the declara- 
tions of our Lord, as to the life which He bestows 



70 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

upon men, to decide whether He is speaking of 
one that is purely moral and spiritual going on 
in the present, or whether He is speaking of this 
same moral and spiritual life exalted and per- 
petuated in a higher state of existence. So, 
again, it may sometimes be a matter of question 
and of doubt whether He is speaking of a life 
purely spiritual and moral, present or future, or 
of one which includes bodily existence. No 
such doubt, however, need come up in connec- 
tion with the language of this text. Its reference 
and meaning cannot be missed or misunderstood. 
The connection and the circumstances, the occa- 
sion of its utterance, the language and actions 
preceding and following, one of the appellations 
assumed, — all these make the reference to 
bodily as well as spiritual life ; life restored to 
the whole man, bodily and spiritual, after bodily 
death has taken place, and this life of the whole 
man in a new state of endless continuance. The 
conversation was about Lazarus, who had died 
as to the body, — who was dead, as to the body, 
while this conversation was going on. It con- 
templates his restoration to bodily life ; and it 
passes from him to others, and becomes of gen- 
eral application. " Jesus said, I am the resur- 






JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. J I 

rection, and the life," not to Lazarus only, but 
to him as one of many. What He was to this 
one, He proclaims, in substance, He is to all ; to 
all men potentially, to all actually, who respond 
to His offers. " Life and immortality " to man, 
restored life to the bodily man, perpetuated life 
to the spiritual man, is thus fully revealed and 
assured in this passage : " He that believeth in 
Me, though he die, yet shall he live ; and he that 
liveth and believeth in Me shall not die forever." 
But this assurance of a future life, of a future 
restored bodily life, is here conditioned upon the 
other kind of life already alluded to, — that 
which is moral and spiritual. He who speaks 
in this language proclaims Himself " the resur- 
rection and the life," the restorer of bodily life, 
the perfecter of spiritual life in another world to 
those who, by faith in Him, have a spiritual life 
in the present. There is, indeed, a resurrection 
of condemnation to a very different class ; but of 
those here mentioned, — participants of a blessed 
resurrection and a blessed life beyond, — the basis 
and the foundation of such life is a moral and 
spiritual life in the present. "He that believeth 
in Me, though he die, yet shall he live." He 
that thus believeth in Me, living through and 



J 2 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

after bodily death, shall live forever. This life 
by faith in Christ, this new life " by faith in the 
Son of God," begins in the exercise of such faith, 
— itself constitutes the pledge and foretaste of 
its endless continuance. It "works by love," 
"purifies the heart," transforms the whole man 
in inward spirit, taste, affection, and aspiration, 
as in outward life, to the divine image of Him 
who is its object, — finds in Him as that object its 
sanctifying and transforming influence. " If any 
man be in Christ, he is a new creature." There is 
a new creation, of changed relations, of changed 
principles, — of inward and outward life corre- 
sponding. The life which such an one lives, " he 
lives by faith in the Son of God." His life is 
"hid with Christ in God." "Christ liveth in 
him." When Christ by His Spirit, in the calling 
forth and the exercise of such faith, enters into 
the human spirit, and thus into the whole cur- 
rent of thought, feeling, affection, and action, 
then this new life has begun. However it may 
be as to the future, it is a present, living, actual 
possession. "He that believeth on the Son 
hath " — not shall have — " hath life." 

^¥>ut while this is all true as to life in the present, 
the language of the text contemplates it more pre- 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 73 

dominantly in another aspect, — as to the future, 
— the endless future. " Though such an one 
die " as to the body, " he shall live," — live 
again in the body, live in the spirit, and, thus 
living in body and spirit, live forever. This re- 
stored bodily life, this perpetuated spiritual life, 
and continuation of that of the present, is thus 
perpetuated endlessly. Those thus living " shall 
not die forever." In other words, the great ques- 
tion of human hope, of human fear, and of hu- 
man love, is here boldly, clearly, and distinctly 
answered. Man is an immortal being. "God 
created him in the image of His own eternity.' , 
Sin. and its consequence, death, have come in 
and disturbed this original divine arrangement 
ol man's being and blessedness. They are, how- 
ever, only a disturbance, — are not hopelessly 
destructive. Divinely remedial influences and 
agencies have come in for purposes of restora- 
tion, for the removal of sin and its consequences. 
" Sin is the sting of death," the deadly weapon 
through which death does his work, and has his 
power ; but this weapon has been taken out of 
his hand. " The strength of sin is the law ; " but 
the law has been divinely vindicated, its claims 
have been satisfied. Its demands have been 



74 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

met in the Person and work of a divine human 
Mediator and Vindicator, — one who, identifying 
Himself with man in his sin and its penalty, 
identifies man with Him in His triumph over sin 
and death and all their consequences. The sting 
of death has been thus taken away ; and death 
itself, in divine assurance, as in actual human 
experience, shall be finally and fully abolished. 
" Through death," He who proclaims Himself the 
resurrection and the life, through His own death 
of atoning sacrifice and suffering, " He destroyed 
him that had the power of death, that is, the 
Devil," — the first great murderer of men's souls 
and bodies, — "and thus delivered them who, 
through fear of death, were all their lifetime sub- 
ject to bondage." " I am come," is His own lan- 
guage, " that My sheep " — My people — " might 
have life, and that they might have it in exceeding 
abundance." "I am He that liveth, and was 
dead, and hold the keys of hell and of death." 
" He died and rose again, and lives, that He may 
be Lord both of the dead and of the living." 
" I," said He, " am the living bread that came 
down from heaven. If any man eat of that bread, 
he shall live forever." " I know My sheep, and I 
give unto them eternal life," — life in the fullest 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 75 

sense of that word possible to human possession 
and enjoyment. Thus, in union with Him, they 
" die no more " forever, they " have eternal life." 
Now, it is of course impossible, in our present 
state, with our present limitations of knowledge, 
of experience, and even of capacity, to have or 
form any thing like an adequate conception of 
what is meant in these divine declarations. And 
yet our knowledge, while imperfect and partial, 
so far as it goes, may be real. "We know," it 
may be, only " in part," but part we do know. 
Certain realities may be comprehended, and in 
these we have intimations of others higher and 
better. In the light and blessedness of that 
heavenly life, for instance, — and this we can 
even now understand, — sin does not enter. Its 
disturbing and deranging and anguish-produ- 
cing influence and power are entirely removed. 
"There the wicked cease from troubling, and 
there the weary are at rest." "There shall in 
no wise enter in any thing that defileth, or maketh 
an abomination." Human sorrow and trouble, 
and their mournful termination and aggravation, 
death and bereavement, are banished forever. 
" There shall be no more death, neither crying 
nor sorrow, nor any more pain." So, too, as to 



7 6 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

those moral and spiritual evils of which, through 
sin, men are in the experience, — the bitterness of 
remorse and self-condemnation, the deep dissat- 
isfaction of moral failure and delinquency, the 
instinctive fearful looking forward of the spirit to 
the results of its own action. All these evils, 
to a greater or less degree never entirely absent 
from any view of human life in this our present 
world, in that eternal life, in that new world, 
"the new heavens and the new earth wherein 
dwell righteousness," are banished forever; and, 
in their stead, the heavenly love and all its posi- 
tive blessings, the heavenly powers and activities 
with all their capacities of expansion and devel- 
opment, — the positive in the eternal life, in re- 
gard to which our conceptions are so inadequate. 
" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have 
entered the heart of man, the good things which 
God hath in store for them that love Him." " But 
God hath revealed them to us by His Spirit." 
Unknown, incomprehensible to the natural man, 
they are to the gracious man matter of personal 
revelation and experience. And as it is with the 
natural man, unable to understand or to receive 
a full revelation of the good things secured and 
enjoyed in a state of grace, so is it with the 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. *]*] 

gracious man as to the higher blessedness of a 
state of heavenly glory. " It doth not yet ap- 
pear," it is not yet manifest, what we shall be ; 
but in words, at least, it is comprehended, nega- 
tively and positively, when we say there is " no 
more death" forever, that they have " eternal 
life." Christ, " the resurrection and the life," 
gives His people this assurance. In " Him they 
shall never die." In Him, the life, they have 
eternal life. 

But there is another truth implied in what has 
been said, as in other portions of the inspired 
Word, of deep interest and importance, — the 
nature of the transition from the life of the present 
to that of the coming world. There is the assur- 
ance, as we have seen, of life to the believer in 
Christ, even of his decaying and mortal body, — 
a blessed resurrection. There is a spiritual and 
moral life in the present upon which this resur- 
rection depends, — " a life by faith in the Son of 
God," quickened into existence by His Spirit, 
and by that Spirit in His gifts and graces cher- 
ished and perfected ; the earnest and assurance, 
not only of restored bodily life, but of its own 
endless continuance ; the endless life of the 
whole man, body and spirit, in a world of heav- 



?8 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

enly glory. And this spiritual life, unlike that 
of the body, is perpetuated uiibrokenly, without 
any such suspension, or break, as is involved in 
the earthly termination of bodily existence. The 
body dies. The spirit lives. As that living spirit 
departs from the dying body, it passes, not into 
a condition of blank unconsciousness, into a 
world where all things are unknown and unknow- 
able. That spirit is with Christ, and Christ is 
with that spirit, in the moment of departure, as 
in all that follows. " Absent from the body, at 
home with the Lord." " I will come again," is 
His own assurance, "and take you unto My- 
self." Just as that Lord Himself passed from 
a cross of suffering to Paradise, and gave assur- 
ance to a fellow- sufferer that he also, on that 
same day, would be there with Him, so with 
all of His people in all ages, — dying as to the 
body, living as to the spirit ; living with Christ in 
the joy of His recognized presence ; the present 
spiritual life passing, without break or suspension, 
into the eternal life which He confers upon His 
people. This life is, indeed, heightened and 
elevated, attains its fullest capacity of exercise 
and blessed enjoyment, as it comes with Christ 
on the great day of His appearing, and in its final 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE, 79 

experience of the " power of His resurrection ; " 
but in the mean time, and all along, its life and 
blessedness are going on — in joyful preparation 
and anticipation for the great result to which 
it looks forward. Paul, for instance, looked 
forward in joyful expectation to " the crown of 
righteousness which was laid up for him," and 
which " the Lord, the Righteous Judge, would 
give him in the day of His final appearing." At 
the same time, and while looking to this final re- 
ward in the day of Christ's visible manifestation 
at the end of the world, Paul felt and expressed 
the desire to depart in bodily death at once, and 
be with Christ, and this as something " better " 
than was possible to mere earthly experience. 
Nor are these states of mind at all incompatible. 
The result of the one is a preparation for the 
other. Eternal life, heavenly life, even after the 
resurrection, will doubtless involve the element 
of advance and increase, in heavenly capacity and 
heavenly enjoyment. So eternal life, heavenly 
life, before the resurrection, between death and 
the resurrection, as in the present spiritual life, 
will have this same capacity of spiritual increase 
and elevation. " Blessed are the dead who die 
in the Lord. Yea, saith the Spirit : even now 



80 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

they rest from their labors, and their works do 
follow them." Thus we are permitted to know 
and to feel in regard to those whom Christ, not 
death, has taken from our embrace. Thus, as 
believers in Christ, we are permitted to antici- 
pate as to our own personal experience. Believ- 
ing in Him, though we die, we live ; living and 
believing in Him, we shall never die. 

And all these particulars, as implied all along, 
but which it is important to bring forward expli- 
citly, and look at distinctly, find their chief 
point of interest, their ultimate ground of assur- 
ance and certainty, in the word and character 
— the Person — of Him by whom this declara- 
tion is given. " Jesus said, I am the resurrection 
and the life." " Jesus said." Jesus Himself, 
upon the authority of His sacred character, of 
His truthful word, proclaims these truths of 
resurrection and life to man, — of life to the 
bodily man from the dead, victory over physical 
death with all its destructive accompaniments ; 
of life to the spiritual man, in the present, in 
the future and eternal world, spiritual life un- 
touched, unbroken, continuing through and be- 
yond physical dissolution. And all this in 
Himself, — to which He is pledged. He does 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 8 1 

not merely say, there is a resurrection and life, 
in all these respects to man, but, " I am this 
resurrection and life." They are in Me, flow 
out from Me, are in My power of bestowal. 
"I," said He elsewhere, "I am the bread of 
life," " the living bread which came down from 
heaven." "If any eat of this bread he shall 
live forever." "If any man thirst," is another 
of His declarations, " if any man thirst, let him 
come to Me and drink." "He that followeth 
Me," is another still, "shall have the light of 
life." The " eating " and " drinking " and " fol- 
lowing " in these passages are equivalents, under 
different figures ; and they are all used, as con- 
vertible terms, with that employed in the text, — 
"believing," "having faith," in Him, that faith 
which puts the soul in living connection with 
Him, and opens it to the enjoyment of His love 
and favor. " I am the resurrection and the life." 
He that believeth in Me, hath faith in Me, as 
Life-giver ; in that faith becomes partaker in, and 
with Me, of such life, in its immediate reception, 
in its earnest and assurance, of all with which 
it is connected. Jesus Himself, the life, is to 
man the source of life. The man who, in faith, 
recognizes and receives Him as such, becomes 



82 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

participant of such life in its present as in its 
future and endless blessings. He that thus be- 
lieve th ; shall live. Shall live ? He lives already, 
in the very act and exercise of his faith ; and, 
thus living, " he shall not die forever." Over 
that man, a living and believing soul, in the light 
of Christ's love, and under the shadow of Christ's 
protection, death has no power to harm or de- 
stroy. 

It thus becomes the practical and paramount 
question, of personal interest to all, as they hear 
or read this declaration, whether the life and 
resurrection, thus revealed and offered to men, 
is something of which they have, not only knowl- 
edge, but actual possession. In " the first man," 
we have all died, and are dying. Have we lived, 
are we living, in " the second Man," — " Christ 
the Lord from heaven, the Author and Giver 
of life to dying men " ? The reply to such ques- 
tion is not far to seek ; in the light of Divine 
truth, has a very simple and easy solution. If 
we have faith in Christ, if thus, by faith, we 
are in communion with Him, in such faith and 
communion there is the assurance of life, — 
life itself has actually begun ; and, with it, the 
eternal life, of which it is the earnest and the 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 83 

anticipation. If we are prepared to take Him, 
" the resurrection and the life/' at His own 
words, those words, in our experience, receive 
their abundant fulfilment. Believing in Him, 
though we die, we live. Thus believing and 
living in Him, we shall not die forever. Amen. 



84 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 

" Jesus said, I am the resurrectioji, and the life: he that 
believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : and 
he that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die" — John 
xi. 25, 26. 

" JESUS CHRIST," said the apostle Paul, 
^ " brought life and immortality to light in the 
gospel. Of the truth of this, the text is an illus- 
tration. This will be recognized as part of our 
Lord's conversation with Martha, immediately 
preceding the miracle of recalling Lazarus to 
life from the dead ; and it seems to have been 
intended to prepare her mind for its reception. 
"Master, if Thou hadst been here," was her 
mournful salutation, "my brother had not died." 
It was that sad moan of sorrowing affection, so 
often before, and so often since, repeated : if 
something had been done, or could have been 
done, that has not been, the result might have been 
different. " If Thou hadst been here ! " There 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE, 85 

may have been that, in the tone and manner, that 
indicated complaint ; but there was, at the same 
time, an expression of confidence and affection. 
Martha believed that Jesus could and would have 
cured Lazarus, had He been present while life 
remained ; that the same power which she had 
known to have been put forth to the benefit and 
relief of others, would have been exerted to his 
restoration. More than this, she seems, even in 
her grief and heaviness, not to have been en- 
tirely without hope. There was not, indeed, 
the same confident assurance. And yet, al- 
though her faith faltered when she thought of 
the four days dead, and the corruption and 
decay supervening, it could not, and would not, 
entirely give up its expectation. " I know that, 
even now, whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God 
will give Thee." Whether He would, or ought 
to, ask of God this inestimable boon, she does 
not presume to determine.' But that the thing 
would be, if He would ask it, she was fully 
assured. "Thy brother shall rise again," was 
the reply. This was indefinite. It might mean 
all that Martha wished, or it might refer to a 
final resurrection, at the end of the world. It 
was taken in the latter sense, and, of course, 



86 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

with a feeling of disappointment. " I know he 
will rise again, in the resurrection at the last 
day." But, until then ! And the language of 
the text is the reply to this feeling : " I am the 
resurrection and the life." This prerogative of 
raising the dead, and giving them life, is pecul- 
iarly my own, to be exercised when and where 
I will. " He that believeth in Me, though he 
die," as Lazarus has died, " yet shall he live ; 
and he that liveth and believeth in Me shall 
never die." And the Divine seal of attestation 
was put upon these words, to those who heard 
them, and to those who should hear or read in 
after-times, by the resurrection that followed. 
We read this language in the light of that res- 
urrection. We look at that resurrection in the 
light of these wonderful words. And in each 
reflected from the other, we see a higher signifi- 
cance, — that they mutually confirm and sustain 
each other. Our Lord thus proclaims that He 
is the resurrection and the life. He authenti- 
cates this claim by the resurrection, and restora- 
tion to life, of Lazarus. He announces, moreover, 
in connection with it, that the whole transaction 
has in view the manifestation and proof of His 
own Divine commission. " I said it," — that is, 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 87 

that God heard all His prayers, and this one in 
particular, — " because of the people which stand 
by, that they may believe that Thou hast sent 
Me." 

But this declaration, thus of interest to those 
first hearing it, loses none of that interest in its 
repetition. Its truths are for all time, and for 
all men ; and from all, they demand careful 
attention. To these truths, thus presented, 
under special Divine attestation, let us endeavor 
to give our examination. What, let us inquire, 
is the substance of this declaration? How can 
we make of it practical improvement? 

First, then, it may be seen, that there is here 
the clear and emphatic announcement, by our 
blessed Lord, of the truth of a future life ; a 
life beyond that of the present ; a life beyond 
the grave, continuing, after bodily death, in 
another state of existence, and thus continuing 
forever. He thus authenticates the existing 
belief of His day and people in regard to this 
subject. Martha had just given expression to 
that belief; and we know from other sources 
that it was the accepted faith of her people, as 
of their religious teachers. Our Lord puts the 
seal of His approval upon this existing belief. 



88 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

He says, in substance, that it is true, and well 
founded. He also confirms it partially, in the 
miracle that follows \ by similar miracles, else- 
where, as by His declarations and actions pre- 
ceding and following. And He finally demon- 
strates it, as He does all His teaching, by His 
own resurrection and ascension, in bodily form, 
to heaven. 

But this future life, the perpetuated exist- 
ence of which He thus speaks, is described 
as twofold in its aspect and character. It is a 
"resurrection," a quickening and restoration of 
organic, bodily existence, as it was temporarily 
with Lazarus, with the daughter of Jairus, and 
with the son of the widow of Nain, as it was 
permanently with Himself, in the body of His 
resurrection and ascension. It is also not only 
a resurrection, but a life, a moral and spiritual 
life, upon which the resurrection depends ; a 
new moral and spiritual life, coming into present 
existence, not suspended, not interrupted, by 
the incident of bodily death, but going on, and 
endlessly perpetuated. Life and immortality, 
bodily and spiritual, are thus here revealed and 
insured to man. There is a resurrection and a 
life ; and they that partake of them, do so 
permanently. " They shall not die forever." 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 89 

And yet this, deeply important and interesting 
as it is, is not the main point of interest in this 
passage. It is not the new truth of divine revela- 
tion which this passage contains — for those who 
first heard it, as for those coming after them. 
That new truth, thus revealed, is not the fact of 
a future life, either bodily or spiritual ; for that, 
as we have seen, was already known. It is rather 
the source of such life of which we are here told, 
and, through this, its essential nature. " I am 
the resurrection and the life." " I at the last 
day will raise up every one that believeth in Me." 
There is, in the light of these declarations to 
man, sinful and mortal, and even after he has 
seen and tasted bodily death, life and resurrec- 
tion. These are in Christ. As men come into 
connection with Him, this life passes over from 
Him to them, and becomes a living possession. 
" Because I live," is His own assurance, "ye live 
also." " Every one that seeth the Son, and be- 
lieveth on Him, I will raise him up at the last 
day." " I know My sheep, and I give unto 
them eternal life." 

This it is which constitutes the peculiarity of 
our Lord's teaching on this point, — first, that He 
is the Author, the Source, the Giver of life to 



90 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

men, bodily and spiritual ; secondly, that this 
life is communicated by Him to His believing 
people immediately, is, therefore, a present pos- 
session, the foretaste of one that is perfect and 
eternal. This divine life, which death cannot 
destroy, which death cannot touch, which is be- 
yond and above all of death's agencies of disso- 
lution and destruction to any man or any class 
of men, comes only from Christ, depends upon 
Him for its reception and enjoyment. All the 
promises of God in reference to this life find in 
Him their fulfilment. All the hopes of God's be- 
lieving people, in all ages, " of a better country, 
even an heavenly," find their fruition in the ex- 
ercise of His mighty power. Jesus is the resur- 
rection and the life. This prerogative of raising 
the dead, and giving them life, is peculiarly His 
own, specially exercised in view of His atoning 
work, His redemptive deliverance from the pen- 
alty and power of sin. The deadly venom of 
the serpent, sin infused into the souls and bodies 
of men, produces death. The saving power of 
Christ, the great promised Deliverer of the seed 
of the woman, extracts this poison, crushes the 
head of the serpent, gains over him a com- 
plete victory, takes away the sting and power of 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 91 

death, and, finally, death itself, giving eternal life 
to His believing people. It is not, therefore, 
merely, as we have seen, the assurance of a 
blessed immortality which is here given, but of 
this immortal life as derived from Christ, as com- 
ing from Him to man as an endless possession. 
It is thus insured to men, both upon His declara- 
tion and the pledged exercise of His power to its 
accomplishment. " Every one that seeth the 
Son, and believeth on Him, I will raise him up 
at the last day." 

The truth thus presented, is frequently reit- 
erated. Indeed, it is well worthy of note how 
often, and in how many different forms, it is 
exhibited in the teaching of our Lord and His 
apostles. And yet when we bear in mind what 
is manifestly the great controlling purpose of 
their instruction, it is not at all strange that such 
course should have been pursued. That con- 
trolling purpose is to present and exhibit Him, 
the Lord Jesus, the Son of man, the Son of God, 
as the great satisfying object of confidence and 
affection ; to concentrate all human dependence, 
gratitude, and aspiration upon Him as a heavenly 
Saviour and Benefactor. In Him faith finds a 
full and satisfying object upon which it can rest 



92 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE, 

in perfect assurance. In Him love finds an ob- 
ject of love, and evidences of love which are 
perfectly satisfying. In His character and word 
and promise, hope finds the foretaste of its frui- 
tion, and looks forward to that fruition as per- 
fected. " Christ is all," in all these respects, to the 
mind and heart of man, for time and for eternity. 
And we thus find that when this great truth of 
life from the dead is presented, it is as coming 
through and from Him. All the hopes and fears 
and anticipations of men connected with such 
life and its opposite are thus made to depend 
upon their connection with Him by a living faith, 
or their exclusion from Him by unbelief. u As 
the Father raiseth the dead, and quickeneth them, 
even so the Son quickeneth whom He will." 
"All that are in their graves shall hear the voice 
of the Son of God." " Christ shall change the 
body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned 
like unto the body of His exaltation." " Be thou 
faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown 
of life." Christ is the life and the resurrection. 
" He is Lord, both of the dead and of the liv- 
ing." " He holds the keys of death and of 
hell." Life from the dead is with Him, is in 
His power of bestowal. 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 93 

Thus as to the Author and Giver of the life 
spoken of in these passages. He does not, how- 
ever, merely reveal Himself as thus the Source 
and Author of life to men. He tells further of 
the nature of this life, — what is involved in 
its possession. " I am come that My sheep," 
My people, " might have life, and that they 
might have it in exceeding abundance." " I 
give unto them eternal life." The life which 
He thus bestows, and upon which men enter in 
their union with Him, is perfect and eternal. 
Though they be dead, yet in Him they live. 
"As through sin, death abounds," so through 
Christ, life superabounds. However death may 
thus abound through sin, over against and coun- 
teractive through Christ, life superabounds. In 
this provision of divine grace and love, there is 
supply to every necessity. Every want and 
desire and aspiration of human nature is met 
and satisfied. The remedy is fully adequate to 
the disease, — wide-reaching, abundant, super- 
abundant as to the evil for which it makes pro- 
vision. Though man in sin dies, yet in Christ he 
lives. In every form and mode in which he thus 
dies, in every such form and mode comes the res- 
torative life. Though, for instance, he be dead in 



94 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

trespasses and sins ; though, as the effect of this, 
he be also dead in the eye of the divine law ; 
though he be dying and mortal as to his body ; 
though, in all these respects, he be dead in sin 
naturally, — yet in Christ graciously he lives. As 
he comes into connection with Christ, such life 
begins. As he takes Christ in the appropriation 
of His person and offers and promises, the act 
of faith is itself a movement of life. As that 
faith finds exercise, there is, first of all, life under 
the divine law, — the life of pardon and accept- 
ance. At the same moment, in point of fact 
and experience, the soul begins to live morally 
and spiritually, in the regeneration of its inward 
nature, — in the entrance and operation and 
control of new principles and affections. This 
new divine life, moral and spiritual, comes in 
and expels the old, natural, sinful life, and takes 
its place ; and last of all, and included in this 
living connection with Christ and the two forms 
of life already mentioned, is another, — the res- 
toration of bodily life, the removal of " the sting 
and power of death," the victory of the whole 
man, even of the mortal body, over the power 
of corruption. " He that believeth in the Son 
hath life " in possession or in assurance, in all 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE, 95 

these respects. In the attainment of this life is 
"brought to pass the saying that is written, 
Death is swallowed up in victory.' ' 

And this life, thus divine as to its source, and 
perfect as to its nature, is permanent and abid- 
ing. It goes on in unbroken continuance from 
the present to the future world, and thus goes on 
forever. It begins, as we have seen, in the pres- 
ent, survives the transition of bodily death, is not 
by that event terminated or suspended. It was 
an invisible though real life " hidden with Christ 
in God," while the believer sojourned in his bod- 
ily tabernacle. It is no less real, though invis- 
ible, now that the bodily tabernacle has lost its 
tenant, — now that, for a brief period, the spirit 
has left its earthly habitation. Christ lives : 
these members of Christ live also. They are, 
indeed, out of our sight, but they are in the 
sight of Him who is their Adorable Head, — 
their life and crown and source of rejoicing. 
And even to human sight and human knowledge 
shall those members of Christ manifest them- 
selves hereafter, not in the frail tent of the de- 
caying mortal body of this earth, but " in a 
glorified body," — "a building of God, eternal 
in the heavens," " the body of our present hu- 



g6 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE, 

miliation changed into the fashion of the body of 
Christ's glory," and fitted for the joy of Christ's 
presence in His heavenly kingdom, this perfected 
life of the whole man, to know of death no more 
forever. He Himself tells us that we shall be 
as He is, that we " shall not die any more," that 
" we shall be as the angels," that we shall have 
eternal life, — life in the fulness and blessedness 
of endless possession. As He, the living Head of 
His people, cannot die, so death to these people, 
His living members, is not possible. 

Such, then, is the substance of this weighty 
declaration, — life, in Christ, to man, and this life 
of the whole man perfect and eternal. But 
these truths are here followed by another, with 
which they are in intimate connection, — the 
manner in which this life is attained, in which 
it becomes to man an actual possession. Christ 
is " the resurrection and the life," potentially to 
all, actually to His believing people. "He 
that believe th in Me," hath faith in My words, 
and because they are My words, " shall never 
die," " shall live forever." He is thus " the res- 
urrection and the life " to the believing, the 
faithful. This is in accordance with the law of 
man's spiritual being : his attainment and en- 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 97 

joyment of spiritual blessing is dependent upon 
his spiritual capacity for its reception. Faith is 
this receptive capacity. As a man has faith in 
other objects and things, so is he intellectually, 
morally, socially. As lie has faith in Divine 
truth, and the Divine Revealer of such truth, so 
is he spiritually, religiously, in his ability fully to 
know such truth, and to enjoy its blessing. Our 
blessed Lord comes to us, as a life-giver, with 
the question, in substance, which He addressed 
to Martha, " Believest thou this?" Believest 
thou My word, and Me ? believest thou that word, 
that, " I am the resurrection and the life " ? that, 
u I am the way, the truth, and the life ? " that I am 
able, as I am ready, to save men from death, 
and confer upon them the blessing of life? 
Every thing, in the light of the New Testament, 
depends upon the proper reply to this question, 
Believest thou these things, believest thou Him 
by whom they are spoken? Martha believed, 
and received the blessing. Others, since then, 
have done likewise, and have had similar ex- 
perience. Others are now believing and liv- 
ing ; and others, again, are disbelieving, and 
in their disbelief are dead to God. But all 
this, however interesting or important, is not 



98 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

now, and here, the specific point of inquiry. 
Believest thou this ? Others may believe. But 
their belief cannot save you from death, or give 
you the blessing of life. Others may disbelieve. 
But their unbelief cannot excuse yours, may in 
fact be heightened by it, and increase its culpa- 
bility. Believest thou thyself, upon the declara- 
tion of the Master Himself, a declaration divinely 
sustained by what followed, that He is the Lord 
of life, the only source of life to man ? Do you 
thus believe? If thus believing, are you living 
in and for Him? When this faith in Christ 
really lives, then it will work itself out, in the 
Christ-like life and practice. Our assurance of 
endless and perfect life in Him is grounded in 
the truth that by faith we have life in Him 
already. The present spiritual life, hid with 
Christ in God, is not only a pledge and foretaste, 
but the actual beginning, of a life which has no 
ending. " To them that thus believe in Christ 
Jesus, there is no condemnation," there is already 
the beginning of eternal life. 

But how if this question be answered in the 
negative? How if we do not believe? What 
then? We say in substance, that He who speaks 
in this declaration, does not speak the truth. 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. 99 

We say that He is not what He claims to be ; 
is either a deceiver, or self-deceived. In saying 
this, we show our own moral and spiritual de- 
ficiency, our incapacity of appreciating His char- 
acter. That is what unbelief in Jesus Christ 
means, — that it is which constitutes its moral 
delinquency. Belief and unbelief, faith and its 
opposite, upon which hang the blessings and 
curses of God's Word, are not states or condi- 
tions of the intellect merely. They depend, to 
a very great degree, upon that of the heart. It 
is not only true, that, as a man believes, so he is, 
but also, that, as a man is, so he believes. God 
blesses no man for the mere strength or clear- 
ness of an intellectual conviction. He curses 
no man for mere intellectual infirmity. But He 
does bless and curse men for the manner in 
which they get and hold their convictions ; for 
the honesty or the dishonesty, for the earnest- 
ness or indifference, for the diligence or indo- 
lence, for the seriousness or frivolity, with which 
they treat certain subjects and their evidences, 
and through which they arrive at their opposite 
conclusions. Unbelief in Jesus Christ, so far 
from being an excuse for those who know of 
Him and His offers and claims, is spoken of 



100 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

as constituting the peculiar enormity of their 
guilt, as manifesting, beyond every thing else, 
their depravity and perversion. When, there- 
fore, in response to this demand of the Master, 
" Believest thou Me?" you urge your want of 
conviction, that Master Himself meets you with 
the explanation, " Ye will not," " ye are not will- 
ing to come to Me, that ye might have life." 
" How can ye believe," when you refuse to give 
My claims the earnest, serious, prayerful con- 
sideration which they always demand? The 
fault is not in the truth, or in its evidences. It 
is in the indifferent, careless, negligent, godless 
spirit in which that truth is looked at, — in which 
it is often put aside without any examination 
whatever. For this it is : " He that believeth 
not, is condemned already." 

And it is in view of this our accountability 
for our faith, as for our conduct, that this lan- 
guage of the Master makes its claim upon our 
attention. Let us see to it, that His words are 
rightly received ; that, to us, they are words of 
life, and not of death and condemnation. As 
He says to each one of us, " I am the resurrec- 
tion and the life," "beTievest thou this ? " may our 
heartfelt response be, " Lord, we believe : help 



JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE. IOI 

Thou our unbelief. " " Lord, to whom can we 
go?" "Thou hast the words of eternal life." 
Thou art " the way, the truth, and the life." 
Lead us in this way. Teach us this truth. Give 
us this life. And to Thy name be all the glory, 
of Thine abundant grace, as of our salvation, 
both now and forever. Amen. 



102 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 



VI. 

THE BLESSEDNESS OF THOSE WHO DIE 
IN THE LORD. 

"/ heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, 
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : 
Yea, saith the Spirit, that they 7?iay rest from their labours ; 
and their works do follow them" — Rev. xiv. 13. 

HP HIS Divine declaration, in addition to its 
* intrinsic interest, is one connected in many 
minds and hearts with mournful yet tender and 
deeply endeared associations. It follows, in the 
burial service, immediately after the consign- 
ment of the body to its kindred dust, as the 
confident assurance, upon Divine authority, of 
the immediate blessedness of Christ's people. 
We are thus reminded, in the very words of 
inspiration, that this consignment is not final; 
that, through Christ, the gate of death is the 
entrance into life ; that, in Him, there is the 
well-grounded hope of a blessed resurrection. 
It is the heavenly announcement of the release 



THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD. IO3 

of the wearied and sinking body from its suffer- 
ings and infirmities, — the deliverance and free- 
dom of the spirit from sin and temptation, — 
the entrance of that redeemed spirit upon a 
holy and unbroken sabbath in the mansions of 
heavenly blessedness. " I heard a voice from 
heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the 
dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : 
Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from 
their labours ; and their works do follow 
them." 

Now, in looking at this language, there are 
two general features of it which claim attention. 
There is, first, the great central truth of the dec- 
laration, with certain of its particulars, — life 
to those who die in the Lord, — life to Christ's 
people, beyond that of the present, and insured 
to them upon Divine promise. Preliminary to 
this, is an announcement of the form and man- 
ner in which this declaration was given, the 
specific assurance of its truth and Divine author- 
ity, and the direction following as to its being 
placed in permanent form, for use and preserva- 
tion. It was " a voice from heaven," not from 
the inspired man's inward consciousness or con- 
victions ; not a conclusion, reached through 



104 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

reasoning, from natural principles, or even from 
previously revealed truths. " It was a voice 
from heaven," God speaking from behind the 
cloud of His majesty ; in His Divine condescen- 
sion speaking human words to human knowledge 
and apprehension ; so speaking that there can 
be no honest mistake as to His meaning. Thus 
divinely spoken from heaven, it is divinely 
re-affirmed as to its truth and importance : 
" Yea, the Spirit saith." The blessed Spirit, the 
Lord and Giver of life, of light, and of truth, 
bears His attesting and confirming evidence 
that this is a voice from heaven, and that it is 
a truthful message of blessing from heaven to 
men. This voice from heaven, the words of this 
voice, are to be placed upon record ; to be so 
recorded that their exact meaning may be given 
and understood, — that they may remain to the 
Church, for permanent use and enjoyment. 
The voice said to me, " Write." It is to become 
part of Scripture ; is too precious to be trusted 
to human memory, to traditional transmission. 
There is thus the heavenly voice, the Divine 
Spirit testifying and confirming, the divinely 
dictated writing, bringing to men in all subse- 
quent ages the substance of that testimony, — 



THOSE WHO DTE IN THE LORD. 105 

they that die in the Lord are blessed, — live in 
Him, — live in a state of heavenly existence. 

But what, let us examine more particularly, 
are these words from heaven, " Blessed are the 
dead who die in the Lord;" "blessed are the 
dead"? This is sometimes the language of 
nature. But it is never unqualified. It is always 
that of doubtful alternative. The blessing, such 
as it is, is not in the death itself, but rather in 
its supposed deliverance from worse evils. Men 
sometimes choose death, — not for its own sake, 
but because life is intolerable ; and one great 
evil is taken rather than another. But there is 
no blessing in that, — rather its opposite. The 
voice of nature as to death itself, — as to the 
dead, — is, that it is a great evil ; that it is not 
a blessing; that they that die are not blessed. 
It is only the dictate of grace, — of nature en- 
lightened and transformed, listening to the voice 
from heaven, that makes such affirmation. And 
it is in the light of the gospel of Christ that such 
affirmation receives its most precious significance. 
" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." 
These dead in the Lord live again, as human rea- 
son has sometimes surmised, and as human affec- 
tion has always tried to hope. They thus live, 



106 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

and forever in a state of heavenly blessedness. 
Over that great enemy, which conquers every one 
of the sons of men, to those who are in the 
Lord, there is victory. They that believe in this 
Lord, that are in Him by a living faith and its 
fruit, a loving obedience, though dying and mor- 
tal, yet shall they live ; and thus living, and be- 
lieving in Him, they shall not die forever. That 
mysterious change, at which nature shudders, 
and over which even grace cannot but weep ; 
that great disaster of mortality, which man re- 
gards as a curse, from which he is ever fleeing, 
and which it is his constant effort to avoid ; 
the grave, into which he looks with feelings of 
instinctive dread, — all these, to those who are 
in the Lord, lose their most repulsive features. 
Death has been robbed of his victory. His 
sting has been extracted. Christ has overcome 
death ; has brought to light life and immortality. 
He has, moreover, given such revelation, in His 
own work and person, of this life, in all its ful- 
ness and perfection and certainty, that there can 
be no reasonable question as to its existence and 
reality. Through Christ the dead live again. 
From Him they obtain the assurance of thus 
living. Blessed are the dead who die in the 



THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD. 107 

Lord. Happy are the dead who die in the Lord. 
Blessedness is better than happiness, if they have 
to be separated. But in the highest form of 
blessedness, no such separation is possible. It 
includes happiness in the highest possible de- 
gree, and much more. Blessed and happy, 
therefore, are not only the living, but even the 
dead in the Lord. In those heavenly mansions, 
whither that Lord has gone before them, every 
want and aspiration of the undying soul is per- 
fectly satisfied. 

Such, then, is the substance, thus far, of this 
divine declaration, and the manner in which it 
makes its demand upon our confidence. There 
is deliverance from the worst evils of death ; 
yea, in death there is blessing ; and we know 
it upon Divine assurance, by a voice from 
heaven. There is a divine source of hope in 
this matter, — the word of divine truth, the 
satisfactory and well-grounded assurance, upon 
this word, of life from the dead. We may, in- 
deed, imagine, in the calm moments of perfect 
health and untroubled reflection, when neither 
bodily pain nor mental anguish is exerting 
its influence, that this truth of man's immor- 
tality can be established upon other grounds, 



108 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

— those, say, of natural reason or analogical 
inference. Good men have always thus hoped, 
and bad men thus feared. There are natural 
intimations upon which these hopes of the 
good, and fears of the bad, have not unreason- 
ably rested. These natural intimations, voices 
of God in nature, deserve to be noted and 
considered, even by those who receive His in- 
spired Word. If man were a creature of pure 
reason, sinless and unperverted, having a strong 
natural affinity for truth, and aversion from false- 
hood, these natural evidences of immortality 
would perhaps be amply sufficient ; would con- 
stitute, alike to his reason and his faith, a moral 
demonstration. In reality, however, he is largely 
the creature of sense and of sight, of appetite 
and passion, of a depraved and sinful nature. 
While his higher interests are for the heavenly 
future, his lower are for the earthly present. 
Even as changed and transformed, under the 
renewing influence of divine truth and the 
Divine Spirit, he is still in a world of sight, 

— living, indeed, by faith, but needing for such 
faith, in the first instance, and then subse- 
quently all along, evidence coming to every part 
of his nature. His bleared vision needs the 



THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD. IO9 

palpable miracle, the written word ; his diseased 
hearing, the distinct and audible voice from 
heaven. 

It is in the sound of that voice from heaven, 
in the light and clearness of this written Word, 
and at the door of that open sepulchre, where 
never man lay before, and where the body of 
the Son of man rested for a brief season, and 
then rose triumphantly, — it is only in the light 
of these revealed truths that the natural proofs 
and intimations of eternal life begin to be fully 
understood. It is only in this gospel of a risen 
Saviour that " the pleasing hope, the fond desire, 
the longing after immortality," is fully recognized 
as an intimation that He who created man capa- 
ble of such desires and aspirations will not finally 
doom him to disappointment. It is only indeed 
in this light that the various analogies — physical, 
intellectual, and moral — of human life, of human 
progress in its different stages, the developing 
capacity to correspond, can be clearly seen as 
pointing to a still higher existence of capacity as 
of enjoyment. It is only in this same divine light 
that the great moral mystery of suffering right- 
eousness and prosperous wickedness is not only 
solved, but becomes evidence of a future perfect 



IIO SORROJVIXG XOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

adjustment. These natural proofs of life beyond 
the grave, by themselves, are not sufficient. 
They are too impalpable to be kept distinctly 
before the mind of the philosophical few. And 
they have little or no value, are not capable of 
being seen or understood by the unphilosophical 
many, — the great majority. They often vanish 
and are forgotten, even when fully understood 
and appreciated, in the season when they are 
most needed, — when heart and flesh are failing 
under the assault of the last enemy. A dying 
man needs something more positive than a mere 
presumption. He would lean, in passing through 
the dark valley, upon something more stable than 
an analogical inference. He would be a fool, in- 
deed, to disregard these, if he had nothing bet- 
ter. But, while giving them their full significance 
and weight, he needs something more. He needs, 
naturally, that which supernaturally has been 
given, — " the voice from heaven," the divine 
word of assurance that his hopes and fears as to 
a future life are not groundless ; that the dead 
in Christ shall live ; that, as He lives, His ser- 
vants live also — live with Him in the blessing of 
heavenly existence. 

And, as there is this revelation of blessing to 



THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD. I 1 1 

those who die in the Lord, so farther does it go 
on, and tell of the nature of that blessing. It 
is twofold. First, there is deliverance, release 
from suffering and anxiety and pressure, and 
perplexity of every kind ; secondly, there is the 
positive blessing of self- approval, of joy, and 
of love following the life of holy obedience. 
" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord ; " 
" they rest from their labors." Those to whom 
this language was first given, were in a condi- 
tion, and surrounded by circumstances, in which 
the prospect of such rest and deliverance could 
be fully appreciated, — the anticipation of it was 
most grateful. It was a time of persecution and 
trial. The writer of the book was himself in exile, 
for the testimony of Jesus Christ. More than 
once in its progress, he speaks of the souls of 
those who had been slain for rendering like 
testimony. And immediately preceding the 
text, he speaks of a season of trial and persecu- 
tion, which would require great endurance and 
faithfulness on the part of those exposed to it, 
to enable them to pass through it successfully. 
To men thus needing " to be faithful," literally 
"even unto death," and painfully conscious of the 
pressure under which they were living, and some- 



112 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

times dying, this language comes, of rest and con- 
solation. The dead in Christ, whether they fall 
asleep in the course of nature, under the sword 
of the persecutor, or torn and mangled by 
wild beasts, at the stake, or in the flames, fall 
asleep into a blessed rest. However many or 
diverse the ways of reaching this goal, to all, as 
it is reached, it brings this blessed result. There 
is deliverance, — the rest of Divine and endless 
deliverance. " There remaineth a rest for the 
people of God." This is not so much to 
convey the idea of cessation from action, as of 
that from toil and painful care and anxiety, — 
relief from suffering. The labors from which 
those who die in the Lord rest forever, are 
those of trial and suffering and anguish, to 
which, upon this earth, they have been sub- 
jected. It is not a state of mental and moral 
stagnation, — of unconscious slumber, of un- 
broken quiescence and vacuity. It is one of bliss- 
ful peace, of joyous expectation, — the grateful 
retrospect of past toils and labors, never again 
to be encountered ; the joyous assurance, that, 
unlike every previous earthly season of repose, 
this shall nevermore be disturbed or broken. The 
dead in the Lord rest from their labors forever. 



THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD. 113 

This by no means exhausts the inspired 
declaration of this passage. It is a truth, how- 
ever, of the deepest interest to man in his 
present state, — that element, perhaps, of the 
heavenly blessedness which can here be most 
fully appreciated. The suffering of toil, and 
the toil of suffering, form part of the primeval 
curse. When that curse is removed, then one 
of its accompaniments and components will be 
removed with it. God's people have ever de- 
lighted to contemplate its experience. When 
Richard Hooker was near the time of his de- 
parture, a friend noticed that he was deeply 
engaged in contemplation, and not inclined to 
converse. And when the inquiry was made 
as to what was the subject of his thoughts, 
he replied that "he was meditating upon the 
number and nature of angels, and of their 
blessed obedience and order, without which 
peace could not be in heaven, and oh that it 
might be so on earth ! " "I shall die," was the 
language of Robert Leighton, looking forward 
with the same feelings and the same hopes, — 
" I shall die and go to a more excellent country, 
where I shall be happy forever. I shall die no 
more, I shall sorrow no more, I shall be sick no 



114 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

more ; and, which is yet more considerable, I 
shall doubt no more ; and, which is the chiefest 
of all, I shall sin no more." From all these 
fountains of present bitterness and future anguish, 
whether in actual experience or in anticipation, 
they who die in the Lord drink no more for- 
ever. To them there is an endless sabbath, — 
a full and perfect release from toil and anxiety. 
Whatever else, therefore, may be the blessedness 
of those who die in the Lord, this, at least, 
upon His own Word, spoken from heaven, may 
be anticipated, — rest, endless rest ; peace, per- 
fect peace — the peace of God passing all un- 
derstanding, never to be broken, never to be 
interfered with or disturbed ; to fill and satisfy 
and overflow the mind and heart forever. 
" Blessed are these dead who die in the Lord; " 
" they rest from their labors." 

This, then, is one of the aspects under which 
the blessing which comes to those who die in the 
Lord is here exhibited, — a state of rest, of per- 
fect peace ; undisturbed by any foreboding of 
future change, disaster, or suffering ; and unlike, 
in this respect, any thing in past or present 
earthly experience. There are many resting- 
places, — such as they are, — many seasons of 



THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD. 1 1 5 

repose to the sons of men, during their earthly 
pilgrimage ; but how soon and invariably are 
they followed by others of toil and care and 
sorrow and deprivation ! 

" We trace 
The map of our own paths ; and long ere years 
With their dull steps the brilliant lines efface, 
On sweeps the storm, and blots them out with tears." 

Decay, mutability, and disaster are written 
upon all things temporal. The peaceful home 
of to-day is the abode of disturbance, anxiety, 
perhaps of strife, to-morrow. The unbroken 
and happy circle of one hour is found bereaved 
and weeping in the next. The brightest day on 
earth is succeeded by a night, — by reverse of 
some kind or other, involving bitterness in its 
experience, sinking of heart in its anticipation, 
sorrow in its remembrance. As the weekly 
sabbath is followed by the weekly care and toil, 
as the darkness of night follows the freshest 
morning and the brightest noon, so all these 
seasons of earthly rest are followed by their 
opposites, — often heighten and deepen these 
opposites, in the fact of their previous expe- 
rience. He who would secure and enjoy un- 
broken rest, peace unalloyed by a single antici- 



Il6 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

pation or foreboding of future evil, must look 
beyond this world, — must turn to that rest 
prepared for the people of God. " There shall 
be no night there, — no darkness of night fol- 
lowing upon the high noon of that endless and 
heavenly sabbath, upon which the people of 
God have entered. Forever they rest from their 
labors. " 

But this is not all. " Their works do follow 
them." They receive those endless rewards 
which follow a life of grateful and loving obedi- 
ence. These works, thus following, of faith, of 
love, of obedience, and thus rewarded, do not, 
indeed, secure salvation or acceptance, in the first 
instance, with God. Every truly renewed heart 
must and will feel and admit the utter unworthi- 
ness,the manifold imperfection, of all human work 
directed to that result. This is all of grace, 
appropriated in believing and loving reception. 
But while such is the truth, it does not at all inter- 
fere with another no less clearly exhibited in the 
Divine Word, — that every such work of faith, in 
heaven, as here on earth, receives its full and 
appropriate reward. " For them that love Him," 
and lovingly work and suffer for Him, " the 
Lord Himself hath prepared a crown of glory." 



THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD. 117 

The more faithful and devoted to the service of 
that Lord, the more closely we tread in His foot- 
steps, the closer will be our communion with 
Him in a heavenly world, — the higher service 
shall we there render, the richer will be its re- 
ward, the greater the capacity for its enjoyment. 
It is, indeed, all of grace, from the beginning to 
the end. Grace is the foundation, the scaffold- 
ing, the capstone. But it is grace dispensed by 
Divine Truth and Wisdom, — grace increased in 
its proper reception and improvement, grace giv- 
ing rise, through this increase, to these richer re- 
wards, and higher capacities for their reception. 
" One star dirfereth from another star in glory." 
There are different degrees of magnitude and 
splendor in the lights of the heavenly firmament. 
They all shine, and they only shine in the light of 
the Sun of righteousness. But it is just in pro- 
portion as they place and keep themselves in the 
fulness of the beams of His love and grace, that 
their own brightness continues and is increased. 
He who increased his one pound to ten, received 
ten cities. He who increased the same amount 
fivefold, received the fivefold reward. Grace 
bestowed the same amount, the one pound, in 
the first instance, to each. That same grace, 



Il8 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 



determined by perfect wisdom, allotted to each 
his reward. Heaven, the gift of grace, is, at the 
same time, the reward of gracious obedience and 
devotion. "The works of those who die in 
the Lord shall follow them." There will, con- 
sequently, in the life of future glory, as in that 
of present grace, be different degrees of reward 
and blessedness, as of capacity ; the lowest far 
surpassing our present capacity of conception, 
the highest to be striven for, and earnestly de- 
sired. "Enoch walked with God for several 
centuries ; and was not, for God took him." 
The dying thief passed from the cross, a dying 
penitent, to paradise. The glory of a heavenly 
world opened upon each of them. But it found 
them with very different degrees of capacity for 
its enjoyment. So, too, as to many other re- 
deemed souls, dying in the Lord, resting from 
their labors, and passing into the joy of His 
presence. With different measures of capacity, 
with different degrees of faithfulness, they have 
wrought in His service. In different degrees 
they have made improvement. "Their works 
do follow them " into that heaven, whither, 
through Christ, they have entered. As is the 
service on earth, so is its blessed reward in 



THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD. 1 19 

heaven. The most abundant shall receive its 
fullest recompense, the least not be forgotten. 
Not one effort for Christ shall be unnoted, 
not one labor for the welfare of man be unre- 
warded. Every struggle against sin, every tear of 
real penitence, every victory over temptation, 
every prayer and heavenly aspiration, is recorded 
in the book of God's approving remembrance. 
They are not wasted. They are not lost. In 
faith, as precious seed, they are sown. In heaven- 
ly fruition the harvest shall be fully gathered. In 
time these servants of God went forth weeping, 
bearing precious seed. In this eternal harvest, 
they come with joy, " bringing their precious 
sheaves with them." 

But there is one thing more, in this divine 
message, to be noted and remembered, — the 
time of the soul's entrance upon its blessedness. 
" Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from 
henceforth," "aTraprt," "from now;" blessed 
even now are the dead in Christ, and immedi- 
ately, as they pass to Him from this world. " I 
will come again," is His own assurance to His 
sorrowing apostles, " and receive you unto Myself, 
that where I am, there ye may be also." "To- 
day," is His consoling hope to the dying male- 



120 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

factor, " to-day thou shalt be with Me in 
paradise. " " Absent from the body, at home 
with the Lord," is the consoling thought of the 
apostle, as he contemplates the prospect of 
bodily dissolution. u Having a desire to depart 
and be with Christ, which is far better," is his 
similar language on another occasion. " For 
me to live, is Christ ; to die, is " — not, shall be in 
the long hereafter, but, "is gain." Even in the 
moment of departure, they who die in the Lord 
are blessed. That Lord comes to the spirit of 
His departing servant. Having sustained him 
in the conflicts and trials of his earthly life, He 
ushers him into life eternal ; takes him to Him- 
self, that where He is, there may His people be. 
He, the Protecting Shepherd and Lord, guides 
His people, even unto death. Those whom 
He thus guides unto death, He guides into 
life, — a life of blissful consciousness of His pres- 
ence and loving favor. They who die in the 
Lord, rest from their labors, — not in a state of 
unconscious slumber ; not in one of purgatorial 
expiation, — not where they can or will need make 
atonement for the sins or failures of the past, — 
not where they can be injured by the neglect, or 
be benefited by the efforts and prayers, of sinful 



THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD. 121 

and imperfect survivors ; not to a state or condi- 
tion in which change — save elevation and in- 
crease of blessing — is possible. They are with 
Christ. Where Christ is, is heaven. To be with 
Christ, is to be in heaven. Whatever the differ- 
ence between the condition of that redeemed 
spirit with Christ before the resurrection, and 
that same spirit with Christ after the resurrection, 
whatever the accession and increase of bliss, in 
this latter event, this, at least, we know, that it 
has entered into life, life unending, — into an 
inheritance of blessing unutterable and unalter- 
able, — that rest and reward which remain for- 
ever for God's people. " Blessed, even now, are 
the dead who have died in the Lord." 

Such, then, is the substance of this Divine 
declaration. This " voice from heaven " tells 
us that the dead in Christ are blessed. They 
are blessed in their release from all sin, and 
from all its consequences, — sorrow and suffering. 
They are blessed in the positive fruit and reward 
of all their works of love and self-sacrifice in 
the service of a heavenly Master. They are 
blessed immediately, — the endless life 'of rest 
and reward begins in their entrance upon a 
heavenly world. It is thus a voice of divine 



122 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

consolation in regard to those who have died in 
the Lord, to those who, by such death, are in the 
sorrow of bereavement. It reminds us that 
these departed ones who have fallen asleep in 
Christ, have not perished ; that " evermore " they 
are with Him, are enjoying that rest prepared 
for His people. Our losses, indeed, in these 
respects, and with all the consolations of divine 
grace and love, are inexpressibly heavy. They 
create a void which this world can never fill, 
which this world should not be allowed to fill, 
which can only be relieved by the balm of heav- 
enly consolation. Let the heart, therefore, be 
tender still, — so it be the tenderness of resig- 
nation, and acquiescence in the purposes of 
divine love and wisdom ; the tenderness which 
tearfully rejoices that the beloved object is 
blessed at the expense of our deprivation ; 
which keeps itself fresh and green for the height- 
ened blessedness of endless re-union. With these 
words, therefore, of divine consolation, spoken 
from heaven, we may sustain and strengthen our 
hearts in regard to those who have gone from 
us, in the Lord. " Jesus died, and rose again." 
" Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with 
Him." 



THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD. 12$ 

But these truths apply in another direction. 
They bring up the question as to one's personal 
participation of any such blessedness, or of the 
consolation following. Are we among those 
here described? Are we in the Lord? This, 
in the light of divine truth, is the moral and 
spiritual necessity of such blessing, whether now 
or hereafter. If we live in the Lord, we die in 
the Lord ; and life and death alike are full of 
blessing. " Blessed is he whose iniquity is for- 
given, and whose sin is covered." "Blessed is 
the man to whom the Lord imputeth no guile." 
Such an one is at all times blessed ; for, under 
the smile of Divine approval, there can be no 
real disaster. No curse can live in the light and 
presence of God's blessing of love and favor. 

And these our iniquities are forgiven, our sins 
covered, and the smile of Divine approval comes 
in only one way, — through Christ, as we are in 
Him, in trusting faith, in loving service. Thus, 
in Him we are blessed, living or dying. " There 
is no condemnation to them that are in Christ 
Jesus." But it is only as we are thus in Him 
that we can cherish such assurance, that we can 
appropriate this consolation of the text, or, in- 
deed, any of a similar character. " There is 



124 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

none other name given under heaven, among 
men, whereby they can be saved." 

" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." 
Blessed are the living who live in the Lord ; 
who, in due time, are re-united to those that 
have gone before, and are with them in the 
blessed re-union of heavenly existence. Is this 
the case with yourself? are these your prospects ? 
If not, this voice from heaven does not speak 
comfort to your heart. That precious darling 
taken from your embrace, and, perhaps, in 
divine love saved from the influence of your 
sinful example, is safe in the arms of Christ. 
But you will never rejoice, meeting him there, 
if you continue in sin or earthliness. That 
revered parent or dear friend fell asleep in 
Jesus, and you felt that, with him, all was well. 
But that does not make all well with you, living 
in neglect and disregard of that Saviour. Here 
is our hope — of personal salvation and blessing 
— of blessed re-union with the departed objects 
of our affection. Make Him your hope, and all 
is well. You may then, upon the warrant 
of divine truth, upon assurances spoken from 
heaven, fill your mind and heart with thoughts 
and hopes of heaven. You may then think of 



THOSE WHO DIE IN THE LORD. 12$ 

it, and look forward to it, as your proper home, 
as the blessed home of the family of God, where 
all His people and children shall be gathered 
and re-united, in love and blissful communion. 
" Goodness and mercy " thus following the soul 
"all the days " of its earthly life, prepares it "to 
dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Amen. 



126 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 



VII. 

THE DIVINE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE. 

" God dealeth with you as with sons" — Heb. xii. 7. 

HPHE peculiar thought which gives significance 
* to this passage, and which, indeed, as a 
thread of gold, runs through the whole Epistle 
in which it is found, is that of the headship of 
Christ in the heavenly family of Christian be- 
lievers and brethren. Believers in Christ receive 
the privilege of adoption into this heavenly 
family, of which God is the reconciled and lov- 
ing Father, Christ the divine, yet human, Elder 
Brother and Protector. At the same time, and 
in virtue of this same work of Christ, through 
which comes the adoption, they enjoy the influ- 
ences of His spirit, — those blessed influences 
of the Spirit of God through which their minds 
and hearts are transformed to the image of 
Christ ; and thus, with the privileges, they have 
also the spirit, of adoption ; are children of God, 
not only in title and outward position, but in will, 



DIVINE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE. \2J 

in character, in inward disposition. "As many," 
says the apostle, " as are led by the Spirit of God, 
they are the sons of God. For ye have not 
received the spirit of bondage again to fear ; but 
ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby 
we cry, Abba, Father." The same Spirit "bear- 
eth witness with our spirit, that we are the children 
of God : and if children, then heirs ; heirs of 
God, and joint heirs with Christ ; if so be that 
we suffer with Him, that with Him also we may 
be glorified.' ' 

The text thus brings to our view the present 
condition of the Christian believer. This may 
be thought of in contrast with his previous state, 
while in the service of sin and of this world. It 
may also be contrasted with that to which it looks 
forward in the future, — the blessedness and 
glory of a heavenly world. At the same time, it 
is of special interest mainly with reference to 
the present, — the experiences, the privileges, the 
trials of a present state of gracious probation. 
The mention of any one of these states is nat- 
urally a reminder of the others. We thus come, 
either directly or by implication, to the three 
great stages common to the personal experi- 
ence and progress of every true child of God. 



123 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

The first of these stages is that of nature, — of 
natural, or, more properly speaking, of unnatu- 
ral, depravity; of alienation from God in the 
love ;.nd practice of sin ; of condemnation, alike 
under the power and the penalty of sin ; mor- 
ally and spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, 
legally dead under the condemning sentence of 
the divine law. The second of these stages is 
that of grace, — gTace abounding over sin and its 
consequences. This, while one of confli: 
essentially a stage of deliverance, — deliverance 
from the condemning sentence of the broken 
law T , from the overmastering power of sinful habit 
and practice ; a state of joyful pardon in the 
service of a reconciled Saviour and Benefactor. 
And this, again, is preparative to another and 
higher stage, — not, as in the first, of nature; 
not, as in the second, of grace, — unlike the 
first, rising :;: above the second, not nature, 
not grace, but glory; unbroken, blessed, and 
endless existence in the kingdom of God ; 
nature transformed and elevated by grace to 
a state of heavenly exaltation. "By nature 
children of wrath." By grace children of God, 
accepted as members of His 
hold. As children, heirs, — heirs to a state of 



DIVINE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE. 1 29 

heavenly glory. " Heirs of God, joint heirs 
with Christ ; if so be that we suffer with Him, we 
may also be glorified together." 

Now it is with the second and middle of these 
stages, that the text is occupied, — the regenerate 
spirit looking back in grateful recognition of 
the divine grace and mercy by which it was 
redeemed from the bondage of corruption, 
looking forward to the full and perfected re- 
demption of the kingdom of God. Our deepest 
present interest, of course, is with this portion 
of the divine progress, occupied, as it is, with 
the experiences, the duties, and trials, of our 
present condition. These are brought before us 
in the text, as connected with a certain fact of 
our position, — that of heirship; heirship to a 
heavenly inheritance. We are "heirs of God, 
joint heirs with Christ.' ' In view of this, our 
relation to Him, " God deals with us as sons." 
Involved in this truth are certain inferences of 
a deeply practical character, — inferences as to 
what ought to be our present feelings and expec- 
tations, our duties, and the obligations to their 
performance. To some of these let us now 
endeavor to give examination. 

First, then, as implied in this relation of heir- 



130 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

ship, is the fact of an inheritance, — the heavenly 
inheritance of a child of God. We are thus re- 
minded of our permanent home and dwelling- 
place, as contrasted with our present state of 
temporary pilgrimage ; where our permanent 
and highest interests are ; and consequently, 
the state of mind with which objects, present 
and future, should be regarded. " If," says the 
apostle in another passage, " if, or since ye are 
risen with Christ, set your affections on things 
above." " Our conversation," says he elsewhere, 
" our citizenship, is in heaven." " They looked," 
said he, speaking of the Old-Testament saints, 
" they looked for a city which hath foundations, 
whose Builder and Maker is God." "Now," 
says he, speaking of himself and his associates, 
" now have we no continuing city, but we seek 
one to come." In all these passages, we find 
the same great truth, — that the permanent and 
highest interests of the child of God are not 
yet in actual possession. They are beyond this 
present world, — while to some degree in actual 
possession, are still more largely in earnest and 
expectation. " God," in this matter, " dealeth 
with us as sons." Children of God, we are heirs 
of God, joint heirs with Christ to a heavenly 



DIVINE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE, 131 

inheritance. There in that heavenly world, 
where is our permanent home and possession, 
are our highest interests. To these, therefore, 
the larger, the main portion of our thoughts and 
aspirations should be directed. We are living 
in the present. But we are not to be living for 
the present. There is much in this present that 
is inimical to our higher life, — to that state of 
mind and of heart which conduces to its perfec- 
tion. Even those things of the present which 
are innocent and allowable, can be enjoyed only 
for a time ; are so inferior and transitory, that 
they are not to be thought of in comparison. 
" I reckon," said the apostle, " that the sufferings 
of this present time," — and the same maybe 
said of its joys, and objects of interest, — " that 
all these things of this present time are not 
worthy to be compared with the glory which 
shall be revealed in us." There in heaven are 
our treasures : there our hearts should be con- 
stantly going. That is our inheritance, as 
children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, — an 
inheritance blood-bought, — secured to us, by 
our Great Mediator, in the title-deeds of heaven. 
We hold it by right in Him ; by constant re- 
liance upon, and communion with, Him. He 



132 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

would have us live in full view of its realities ; to 
make it the constant object of our efforts, of our 
earnest desires and aspirations. " Set your affec- 
tions on things above, where Christ sitteth at 
the right hand of God." 

But this fact of Divine heirship implies some- 
thing more than a feeling of interest in the 
inheritance, something more than a distinct 
perception of its existence and reality, — the 
going forth of desires to the attainment of its 
full possession. It involves, additionally, the 
necessity and the propriety of preparation, — 
that preparation which fits us, in capacity as 
in disposition, for its enjoyment. The heir to 
an earthly inheritance receives instruction and 
training, in childhood and youth, with reference 
to the peculiarities of his future position. So, 
too, is it with the heir of a heavenly inheritance. 
"God," in view of this truth of his heirship, 
" deals with him as a son ; " treats him, as he really 
is, as a child, — gives him the instruction needed 
for his spiritual growth and development. There 
is need, to such an one, first of all, of instruction 
as to the realities of his present position ; as to 
his present privileges and duties; the connec- 
tion of these, in their enjoyment and perform- 



DIVINE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE. 1 33 

ance, with his future prospects and experiences. 
His heirship places him in a new relation, not 
only to his heavenly Father and Saviour, but 
also to his fellow-men, — to his fellow-Christians, 
partakers of the same hope with himself; to his 
fellow-men, in possibility heirs to the same bless- 
ing. In these new relations are certain new and 
peculiar privileges. Connected with these are 
their corresponding obligations and duties ; privi- 
leges and duties in reference to which thorough 
understanding is necessary. It is important that 
he should have this clear appreciation of these 
realities of the present and of the future, — the 
relations which spring out of them, the feelings 
and actions therewith properly connected. The 
heir of heaven is a learner, a child, in his state 
of pupilage. Such pupilage, as we have seen, 
implies Divine instruction. 

But it also implies human acquisition, and 
demands, therefore, effort on the part of the 
pupil to use the means, and improve the divinely 
afforded instrumentalities. He thus, by learning 
to live upon earth, becomes fitted for heaven. 
The task of his pupilage is to be clearly as- 
certaining the peculiar features of his present 
and prospective condition ; upon such knowl- 



134 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

edge and appreciation, to be acquiring the dis- 
positions and feelings, confirming the motives, 
strengthening the habits, forming and maturing 
the character, by which he is prepared for his 
heavenly inheritance. " We know not," indeed, 
in all respects, " what we shall be." In some 
respects, however, we do thus know, — have real 
knowledge as to our heavenly condition. " We 
know," moreover, " that when He shall appear," 
through whom, and with whom, we are joint 
heirs in the heavenly family, "we shall be like 
Him; for we shall see Him as He is." And 
"every one that hath this hope in Him, purifieth 
himself, even as He is pure ; " under the influ- 
ence and power of this hope in Christ, of a 
heavenly inheritance, becomes fitted, in knowl- 
edge, in disposition, and in character, for its 
endless enjoyment. 

Nor is it instruction, merely, that in such 
course of preparation is needed. With this, 
something else is necessary, — not only the im- 
partation of truths and ideas, by which our 
minds are enlightened, and our souls purified for 
a state of heavenly glory, but the working of them 
in by test and trial, so that they become part of 
our personal experience. This, perhaps, might 



DIVINE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE. 1 35 

be dispensed with in the case of unfallen and 
sinless beings ; though even of this we are not 
certain. So far as we can see, some process of 
training and probationary discipline is needed, 
under all circumstances, to the formation of posi- 
tive character; but whether so, or not, with 
other beings, it certainly is so with man, — with 
creatures like ourselves and in our circum- 
stances. When we enter upon the divine life 
in the service of Christ, we are children, not 
only in knowledge, but in grace. We need that 
kind of experimental training which will both 
increase our knowledge, and reduce it to prac- 
tice, — bring out of it experience. We shall 
thus be enabled to grow in grace as we grow in 
knowledge ; as we throw off the remains of 
ignorance and delusion, throw off those of sin 
and corruption — become fully conformed to 
the image of our ascended Master. That there 
is a necessity for such spiritual progress, we 
should ever keep in mind, — ever keep before 
us as a definite point of exertion. But the 
point of special interest in this connection, is 
that of which we are reminded in the text, — 
not only nor mainly the human, but the Divine, 
agency and portion in all such progress ; the 



136 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

Divine arrangement for it, and interest in it ; 
the Divine obligation assumed and pledged to 
further it in every manner possible. " If chil- 
dren, heirs, — heirs of God, and joint heirs. with 
Christ." And if such be really our relations 
to the heavenly Father, and to the First-born 
in the heavenly family, have we not in this the 
highest assurance of their agency and aid in our 
proper training and preparation for heaven? 
" God dealeth with you as with sons." What a 
flood of light does this throw upon the path of 
our earthly pilgrimage ! What abundant sources 
of strength and consolation does it afford in our 
seasons of temptation, of difficulty, and per- 
plexity ! How it fringes with golden light the 
darkest cloud of earthly trouble, of suffering, 
of adversity ! " God dealeth with us as with 
sons." First, by making us sons, — giving us 
the privileges, the title, the expectations, of 
sons ; then by giving us, through His Spirit, the 
spirit, the will, the dispositions of sons ; then, 
still further, by His providence co-operating with 
these influences of His Spirit and gifts, form- 
ing in us the character, the full capacity, the 
thorough preparation, of sons, — so arranging our 
whole earthly course, that it conduces to such 



DIVINE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE, 1 37 

preparation, — to our thorough maturing, as 
children of God, for our heavenly inheritance. 

And in how many different modes do we find 
this statement verified and illustrated ! We, for 
example, are naturally disposed to walk by sight. 
But God would have us walk by faith. He 
therefore places us in positions, surrounds us by 
circumstances, brings upon us emergencies, where 
sight fails, — where faith alone can guide and 
sustain us. We, again, are naturally disposed to 
be laying up for ourselves treasures upon earth, 
idolizing those already in possession. But God 
would have us lay up for ourselves treasures in 
heaven, — often takes from us our earthly treas- 
ures, makes us feel their insufficiency and insta- 
bility ; sometimes takes from us our richest 
treasures, — those precious jewels of the heart, 
— lays them up in heaven for us ; thus urges 
and gives us motives to strive for their recovery. 
We, again, are disposed to rest satisfied, and to 
be comfortable in our present blessings, — in 
earthly sources of enjoyment and of happiness ; 
to be at ease in our lot, — adjusting ourselves 
to it, as if it were our permanent heritage and 
home, and not our place of temporary sojourn- 
ing. God would have us feel that we are pil- 



138 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

grims and strangers ; that this is not our rest ; 
that we are travelling to a better country, even a 
heavenly. And He makes us feel and understand 
it in the numberless shakings and dislocations 
and disturbances to which we are so frequently 
subjected. We, again, are often tempted, even 
after we have entered upon the service of God, 
to be satisfied with our attainments ; to be at 
ease in Zion ; to take favorable views of our 
spiritual condition, — and this even while, per- 
haps, our hearts are cold, and our lives unfruitful, 
in the work of the Master. God would reveal to 
us our insufficiency, — places us, or allows us 
to place ourselves, in some new position, where 
Satan is allowed to sift us as wheat ; withdraws 
His special grace, leaving us to our own strength 
and wisdom, — or rather to our folly and weak- 
ness ; in the revelation of such folly and weak- 
ness, and the fall connected with them, thoroughly 
humbles us, and stirs us up to greater exertion. 
These are some of the modes in which the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ — our 
Father in the Heavenly Family — proves and 
tries us, trains and disciplines, and prepares us 
for His presence in a world of glory. Thus it 
is that God deals with us as sons, — giving us 



DIVINE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE. I 39 

the position, the privilege, and the title of sons ; 
gradually forming in us the character of sons ; 
preparing for the full enjoyment of the inher- 
itance of His dear children. " Heirs of God, 
joint heirs with Christ ; " and, therefore, under 
heavenly instruction, training, and discipline, in 
preparation for the heavenly inheritance. 

But all this, in the experience of the child of 
God, the heir of heaven, implies another thing, — 
one of which we are told as, naturally, to be an- 
ticipated, — chastisement, the training and disci- 
pline which involve the element of suffering. 
" What son is he whom the Father chasteneth 
not ? " " If so be that we suffer with Christ, that 
with Him also we maybe glorified." " Rejoice, 
inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's suffer- 
ings." These sufferings of Christ came through 
His conflict with sin, — sin not in Himself, but in 
Satan and in the world around Him. The suf- 
ferings of Christ's people come in the same 
manner, and from the same sources, with the 
additional element of indwelling sin to ren- 
der them necessary. " He," we are told, even 
in His sinless nature, " was perfected," exalted 
" through suffering." Nor can the same agency 
be dispensed with, in the process of perfecting 



140 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

His people. It is while under this agency, in 
the reception of these purifying and perfecting 
experiences, that we need remember this truth 
of the Divine presence, and control and supervis- 
ion of them. " God is dealing with us." In 
these our earthly trials and anxieties and suffer- 
ings and bereavements, "God is dealing with 
us," — not merely man, or Satan, or natural 
agency. Man, it may be, is dealing with us. So 
also is Satan and the world, and natural agencies 
and influences. But in and through and around 
and above them all, is the Divine presence and 
dealing. He is dealing with us, too, not as 
enemies or strangers, or servants only, but " as 
sons," — in His tenderness, as in the depth of 
His Fatherly interest, dealing with us faithfully, 
even though, in such faithfulness, He must deal 
sharply and severely. " Every branch in Me 
that bringeth forth fruit," My Father " prune th, 
cutteth it in, that it may bring forth more fruit." 
"I know," said the Psalmist, "that Thy judg- 
ments are right." Even the earthly and the 
sinful are sometimes impelled to say as much as 
that : the righteousness of God's judgments is 
too manifest to be denied. But the child of 
God can go farther, and say more : " I know 



DIVINE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE. 141 

that Thy judgments are right ; and that, in very 
faithfulness/' the faithfulness of fatherly inter- 
est and love, "Thou hast afflicted me." "I 
know/' is the language of the Master, " I know 
My sheep, and am known of Mine." Just as the 
experienced shepherd, looking over his flock, 
and at a glance, without counting, knows whether 
any one is missing ; so Christ, the Good Shep- 
herd, that gave His life for the sheep, knows 
them, — knows of all their experiences, and 
makes provision for their welfare. " In all their 
affliction, He is afflicted, and the angel of His 
presence saves them." The chastisement which 
faithfulness sees to be necessary, it administers, 
but no more ; and even that, with all the allevi- 
ations possible of Divine love and wisdom. " He 
stayeth His rough wind, in the day of His east 
wind ; " in the severity of His chastisement, 
thinks upon mercy, has in view the welfare of 
its recipients. 

These are the Divine meanings and purposes, 
in all the Divine dealings with the people of 
God, of affliction, trouble, bereavement, and 
earthly perplexity. These the child of God 
should ever bear in mind, in his reception of 
these dealings, — strive to secure the blessed 



142 SORROWING NOT WITHOUT HOPE. 

results to which they look forward. It is only as 
such spirit is cherished, and such improvement 
is sought, that we can fully join in the apostle's 
conclusion, " I reckon that the sufferings of this 
present time are not worthy to be compared with 
the glory which shall be revealed in us." " Our 
light affliction, which is but for a moment, work- 
eth out for us/' is not merely followed by, but, 
under Divine superintendence and management, 
" worketh out for us a far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory." 

Such, then, are some of the truths implied in 
this statement, as connected with the present 
position and future prospects of the true Chris- 
tian, the child of God, by faith in Christ Jesus. 
Let us, therefore, certify ourselves that this is our 
position ; that these are our prospects ; that this 
is the divine meaning of all our earthly experi- 
ences. And let us ever remember that these 
truths of the text are always true, — are just as 
true now, and with reference to the circum- 
stances of the present moment, whatever they 
may be, as to any period of earthly existence, as 
to any form of human experience. Here and 
now, in every perplexity and trial, in the suffer- 
jng of what has been and is, in the dread of what 



DIVINE TRAINING AND DISCIPLINE. 1 43 

may be, in every such experience, these precious 
truths of the text are still true ; to the child of 
God are ever full of strength and consolation. 
If we are His, He is making, and will make, all 
events, toward and untoward alike, to work to- 
gether to our highest welfare. When we con- 
fide our highest interests to Him, He will take 
care of them. If, " as heirs of God, joint heirs 
with Christ, we suffer with Him, with Him also 
we shall be glorified." In all these things, " the 
trials and anxieties and troubles of earthly exist- 
ence, we may be more than conquerors, through 
Him that loved us." "The Lord God is a sun 
and shield, and He will give grace and glory ; 
and no good thing will He withhold from them 
that love Him. O Lord God of hosts, blessed is 
the man that trusteth in Thee." Amen. 



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